Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Group revenues grew better than planned by 1% to € 938 million in Q1 despite pandemic-related lower advertising revenues.Also the Group’s adjusted EBITDA developed better than originally expected in the pandemic environment, declining by only 9% year-on-year to € 143 million.
In particular, the strong earnings growth in the Dating and Commerce & Ventures segments largely offset the declines in the high-margin advertising business. Together with efficient cost management, this strengthened the Group’s profitability.Net financial debt was reduced by EUR 295 million compared to March 31, 2020, despite the pandemic environment.The Groupincreased its full-year outlook for revenues by € 100 million to a target range between € 4.250 billion and € 4.450 billion and for adjusted EBITDA from between € 720 million and € 780 million to between € 750 million and € 800 million.
Despite the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, ProSiebenSat.1 Group made a good start into financial year 2021: In the first quarter of 2021, the Group generated revenues of € 938 million – a slight increase of 1% compared to the previous year (previous year: € 926 million). In the first three months of the year, the ongoing diversification of the Group more than compensated for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Group’s revenues after the previous-year quarter was notimpacted by initial COVID-19 effects until mid-March 2020.
Whereas in the first quarter of 2021 advertising revenues were down year-on-year as expected due to the pandemic, growth was generated amongst others by program production and sales as well as the distribution business in the Entertainment segment and by companies in the Commerce & Ventures segment such as the online beauty provider Flaconi, which particularly benefited from the advertising reach of the entertainment business. In addition, the Dating segment played a key role here with the integration of the US online dating company The Meet Group, which is also recording strong organic growth.
Rainer Beaujean, Chairman of the Executive Board of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, commented: ‘We are very satisfied with our start into the year 2021. Despite the continuing COVID-19 lockdown, we have achieved revenue growth in the first quarter and limited the impact on adjusted EBITDA – even though the previous-year figures were mostly not yet affected by the pandemic until mid-March 2020. This is clearly due to our increasing diversification: Particularly with our good results in the Dating and Commerce & Ventures segments, we largely compensated for the pandemic-driven declines in the advertising business’.
