Affiliate marketing company XLMedia reported a profit and revenue decline of 34.7% in H1 2020.
The half was a turbulent one, with ranking changes to various casino websites in Google having an impact.
COVID-19 and the chaos it unleashed on the world also played a role.
XLMedia had already warned investors about a potential decline in revenue in July.
How did XLMedia perform in H1 2020?
Revenue for the first half of this year reached $27.7 million, compared to $42.5 million in H1 2019.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also suffered a significant decrease. Compared to $18.6 million in H1 2019, this year’s tally was a meagre $5.1 million.
Elsewhere, operating costs remained around the same ($14.8 million). Most of this was spent on admin costs, which slightly rose from $11.2 million to $11.5 million.
Sales and marketing expenses were cut from $2.6 million to $2.2 million. Spending on research and development, on the flip side, jumped from $696,000 to $1.2 million.
Sustainability is the name of the game
XLMedia has been focusing on restructuring itself this year, in a bid to achieve sustainable growth on the long run.
The company’s CEO Stuart Simms had the following to say.
“Over the last six months, we have made good progress in reshaping the organisation, reducing complexity, flattening the hierarchy and beginning to bring in the complementary skills required for the future.
“Looking outward, as we laid out in April, the priorities of the business are changing, to reduce risk and drive sustainable growth in the top and bottom line.”
XLMedia has also sought to recover its casino sites’ lost Google rankings. A test resubmission was sent in July, but didn’t succeed.
Simms said the below in relation to this.
“We believe this test was not successful because the assets remained on our proprietary technology platform, rather than having been fully rebuilt on an open-source technology suite, as we plan to do; however no significant feedback or clarity is provided on the reasons for such an outcome.
“We are pursuing multiple routes to re-establishing our traffic levels in the casino vertical.”
