Appen Limited (APX) Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Thank you very much Rachel and good morning everyone. Welcome to Abbin's H1 FY24 results presentation. Today I'm joined by our CFO Justin Miles. There are four sections to the presentation as per the agenda on page three. Firstly, I'll share an overview of our H1 performance. Second, Justin will provide greater detail in the financial performance for the half. Third, I'll share an update on how we are tracking against our strategy. And finally, we will provide an update on July trading and discuss our FY24 outlook. Moving to page five in the presentation. Including the impact of the Google contract loss, we're very pleased that Appen is returning to revenue growth. In Q2, revenue grew 16% compared to the same period in FY23 and was up 22% on Q1 this year. For the half, H1 revenue was up 13% on H2 last year if we exclude Google. H2 revenue has historically been higher than H1, so we are particularly pleased with this result. Much of the growth has been supported by new generative AI-related projects, especially from our global and China customers. We're pleased with the revenue growth experience so far. Now onto page six. We achieved underlying EBITDA positivity in Q4 last year, However, the Google-related revenue reduction impacted our profitability in Q1, resulting in a loss of $2.9 million. We acted swiftly to control costs and now have completed the previously announced $13.5 million cost reduction. While we were reducing costs, we were also winning new business, which resulted in an underlying EBITDA of positive $0.6 million in Q2. This was a $7.8 million improvement compared to the same period last year. For the half, group underlying EBITDA before FX improved $13.4 million. The significant improvement is due to the cost our programs executed with our operating ...