Revenue Wirtualna Polish Holding in the second quarter of 2024 reached PLN 380.84 million, after a year-on-year increase of 5.9%. This is mainly due to the tourism segment companies – including mainly Wakacje.pl, Nocowanie.pl and the Szallas Group acquired at the end of 2022 – in which quarterly revenues increased by 18% y/y to PLN 144.46 million, and adjusted EBITDA – from PLN 23.86 to PLN 31.39 million.
The company continues to expand its travel business. In June this year it agreed to buy 80 percent of the shares of the owner of the Romanian tourism platform Litoralul Romanesc for 16.8 million euros.
Tourism is getting closer and closer in terms of revenue and profitability media and subscription division of Wirtualna Polska Holding, which with an increase in quarterly revenues of 3.1% to PLN 180.67 million recorded a decrease in the adjusted value EBITDA profit from PLN 67.96 to PLN 58.11 million.
Company representatives have been talking about the slowdown in the advertising business for several quarters. In May this year, the subsidiary Wirtualna Polska Media laid off 120 employees, or 10 percent of its staff. “The failure to achieve the assumed business goals resulting from the economic slowdown and the growing dominance of global technology platforms led to the need to change priorities, including reducing employment,” explained Joanna Pawlak, then president of the company. In early August, she left Wirtualna Polska Media and was replaced as head by Jacek Świderski, president and one of the main shareholders of Wirtualna Polsk Holding.
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– I am pleased to return to the media business after 7 years. Especially because shortly before my departure in 2017, we made “advertising visibility”, i.e. visibility, a new currency in the image campaign market, and today I am pleased to announce a family of new advertising products for implementing efficient campaigns based on artificial intelligence – WP Booster – says Świderski in a press release.
New WP Booster Advertising Tools
For several years now, Wirtualna Polska Holding has been developing new ideas on how to make money from advertising in addition to selling its own offering. The first version of WP Booster, released in mid-2020, will now be offered under the WP Booster (ROAS) brand.
Two new tools will be added at the beginning of September. In WP Booster (CPC) there is a charge for each click on the ad (similar to, for example, Google PMax), while in WP Booster (CPSC) – only for clicks that actually led to the stay on the landing page. Wirtualna Polska emphasizes that data from several dozen test campaigns showed a fourfold increase in effectiveness for customers compared to manually optimized CPC campaigns.
All WP Booster tools are based on artificial intelligence. – We will soon announce more “smart” advertising products from the WP Booster family – announces Jacek Świderski.
>>> Praca.Wirtualnemedia.pl – thousands of media and marketing ads
On the other hand consumer finance segment of Wirtualna Polska Holding, which includes, among others, Totalmoney and Extradom, last quarter with a 12.4% drop in revenues. to PLN 49.19 million, slightly improved adjusted EBITDA profitability: from PLN 8.07 to PLN 8.44 million. In the division classified as others, revenues increased by 12.9%. to PLN 10.24 million, and adjusted EBITDA – from PLN 291 to PLN 461 thousand. zloty.
Lower profit of Wirtualna Polska
Profitability of Wirtualna Polska Holding in the second quarter of this year was significantly lower than in the previous year: adjusted EBITDA decreased from PLN 100.18 to PLN 98.4 million, and operating EBITDA decreased from PLN 58.63 to PLN 45.74 million. Net profit was further reduced by the deepening negative result in financial activities from PLN 12.29 to PLN 15.27 million. Consequently the holding generated net income of PLN 19.1 million, compared to PLN 33.59 million a year earlier.
Wirtualna Polska Holding’s results turned out to be below the average of analysts’ forecasts collected by PAP Biznes. They expected the company to generate PLN 389.1 million in revenue and PLN 21.5 million in net profit for the parent company in the second quarter of this year. However, adjusted EBITDA is slightly higher than the average forecast (PLN 98.2 million).
Employee and external service costs rise
Why did Wirtualna Polska Holding’s profitability decline? Its report indicated that the drop in profits in the media and subscriptions segment is mainly due to the increase in operating costs, mainly wages. – Additionally, the segment’s EBITDA was influenced by higher marketing costs and investments in future subscription growth – marked.
Company-wide quarterly personnel expenses increased by 13.9% year-on-year – from PLN 93.21 to PLN 106.18 million. Even stronger, by 20.9%. to PLN 154.62 million, the largest cost category increased – external services.
Over the first half of this year Wirtualna Polska Holding’s revenues increased by 9% year-on-year to PLN 730.62 million, mainly due to a 25.8% increase to PLN 270.41 million in the tourism section. However, in the consumer finance segment, revenues decreased by 8.1% to PLN 96.73 million.
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Tourism increased adjusted EBITDA by 60%. to PLN 54.25 million, while in the media and subscriptions segment there was a decrease of 12%. to PLN 112.52 million.
Adjusted EBITDA of the entire company decreased by 3.4 percent to PLN 166.49 million, and net profit – by 23.6 percent. up to PLN 38.13 million.
On Monday, at the end of the stock exchange session, the price of one share of Wirtualna Polska Holding was PLN 97.60, which gives a capitalization of PLN 2.89 billion. In the last 12 months, the price has decreased by 12.5%.
At the end of July, the company paid investors PLN 60 million in dividends (including PLN 17.21 million of supplementary capital), PLN 2 per share. The main shareholders, in addition to Jacek Świderski, are members of the board of directors Michał Brański and Krzysztof Sierota, each of whom owns shares constituting approximately 12.7-12.8 percent. capital and 18.4 percent votes at the general meeting.
