DGAP-News: NFON AG continues to drive Growth Strategy 2024 and strengthens its activities in the Contact Center market

Corporate News

NFON continues to drive Growth Strategy 2024 and strengthens its activities in the Contact Center market

- Recurring revenues increase by 15.7% - share of total revenues climbs to 89.5%

- Number of seats increased to over 573,000

- Adjusted EBITDA of EUR 2.8 million around 11% above previous year's level

- NFON continues to consistently implement its sharpened strategy and strengthens its presence in the European Contact Center market

Munich, 18 November 2021 - NFON, a European provider of voice-centric business communication from the cloud, continued to develop positively in the first nine months of the current financial year compared to the previous year. At EUR 56.5 million, total revenue in the reporting period was 14.3% higher than the volume for the same period in 2020. The increase in recurring revenues was even more significant: They increased by 15.7% to EUR 50.6 million, which equates to an 89.5% share of total revenue (9M 2020: 88.4%). Driven in particular by the continued high volume of voice minutes and the positive development of the NFON subsidiary Deutsche Telefon Standard GmbH, average revenue per user (blended ARPU) recorded an increase of EUR 0.14 to EUR 9.91 compared to the first nine months of 2020 (9M 2020: EUR 9.77).

In Europe, supply bottlenecks for hardware and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continue to prove a burden and have led to a correction of the economic growth rate from 3.5% to 2.6% in Germany, among other countries. This trend is also reflected in the development of seats for NFON AG and is expected to continue in the fourth quarter. The expansion of extensions (seats) installed at customer sites increased by 12.8% to now 573,069 (9M 2020: 508,265).

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 11.2% to EUR 2.0 million despite the continued increase in investment activities, while adjusted EBITDA rose by 10.5% to EUR 2.8 million. This trend is also reflected in the development of seats for NFON AG and is expected to continue in the fourth quarter. The expansion of customer installed extensions (seats) increased by 12.8% to now 573,069 (9M 2020: 508,265).

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 11.2% to EUR 2.0 million despite the continued increase in investment activities, while adjusted EBITDA rose by 10.5% to EUR 2.8 million. "We are consistently implementing our 'Growth Strategy 2024,' which we sharpened at the beginning of 2021, and continue to invest in marketing and personnel. For instance, we will increase our number of employees in the development area by around 40% by the end of the year. Given the enormous shortage of good software architects and developers on the job market, we are very satisfied with this first step. In addition, we are focusing even more on partner activation and gaining partners in all european markets with our new partner programme Ngage. At the same time, we have revised our brand strategy and product portfolio in recent months. We see our future in the markets for unified communications and Contact Center products," commented Dr. Klaus von Rottkay, CEO of NFON AG.

An important step on this growth path has just been taken: NFON has gained access to the rapidly growing European market for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) through its partnership with the Czech company Daktela s.r.o. This segment accounted for around 27% of the total Contact Center market in 2020, at USD 778 million. An average growth rate of 17% per year is expected in this area through 2027. As of the second quarter of 2022, NFON will be able to exclusively market a product in its core markets with the new omni-channel solution Contact Center Hub that offers target audience-oriented Contact Center functions for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as enterprises. The decisive criteria that Contact Center Hub fully meets are the possibility of contact via all communication channels (omni-channel communication), integration capability, reliability and support.

The expansion of the product portfolio remains a high priority for NFON. The company already entered into a strategic partnership with the Italian company Meetecho in June 2021. This gives NFON access to industry-leading WebRTC know-how and at the same time accelerates the implementation of its unified communications strategy.

"Customer communication continues to evolve towards integrated business communication. Unified communication, as we offer it with Cloudya, is complemented by the Contact Center Hub. It offers us double the opportunities: on the one hand, we get an additional product that can also be sold on its own and open up new customer potential. On the other hand, Contact Center Hub represents a customer contact solution which, as an integrated solution from a single source, will be highly attractive for our existing cloud telephony customers. Integration into processes and customer contact will be of crucial importance for the further development of companies. In the future, we will map both in our new portfolio structure," von Rottkay concluded.

Although the NFON Group developed positively overall, the company was still not able to completely escape the negative effects on Europe's economy caused by the corona crisis in the reporting period. On the one hand, as in the previous year, there were definitely positive effects on NFON's earnings situation due to the increased level of working from home and the associated high volume of high-margin voice minutes. On the other hand, the orders planned from customers could not be completed or won as planned in the first nine months of 2021 as a result of the still prevailing general uncertainty that companies are still feeling.

Against this backdrop, the Management Board expects a slightly weaker growth rate for the seat base of 12% to 14% for the full year 2021 compared to the originally forecast 15% to 17%. Due to how seats are developing, the Group also foresees a slight flattening of the growth rate of recurring revenues for the full year for the 12-month period, so that the growth rate of recurring revenues is likely to be at the lower end of the originally forecast range of between 14% and 16%. The share of recurring revenues in total revenue will remain strong.

Results for the first three quarters of 2021 at a glance:

1 Based on the average number of seats per month in each year

2 Adjusted for the retention bonus, stock options, non-recurring effects

The quarterly statement and further information on the growth strategy 2024 can be found in the CLOUDS Magazine (https://corporate.nfon.com/en/investor-relations/reports).

Investor Relations Contact

NFON AG

Sabina Prüser

Head of Investor Relations

+49 89 45300 134
[email protected]

Media Contact

NFON AG

Thorsten Wehner

Vice President Public Relations

+49 89 45300 121
[email protected]

About NFON AG

Headquartered in Munich, NFON AG is the European provider for voice-centric business communication from the cloud, counting more than 50,000 companies across 15 European countries as its customers. With Cloudya, NFON offers an easy-to-use, independent and reliable solution for advanced cloud business communications. Further premium and industry solutions complete the portfolio in the field of cloud communications. With our intuitive communications solutions, we enable European companies to improve their work a little every single day. https://corporate.nfon.com/en/

Disclaimer

This announcement is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States of America. The securities of the Company have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and may not be offered or sold in the United States of America absent registration or an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act. No public offering of securities of the Company is being made in the United States of America and the information contained herein does not constitute an offering of securities for sale in the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Japan or any other jurisdiction in which such offering would be unlawful. This announcement is not for release, publication or distribution directly or indirectly in or into the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Japan or any other jurisdiction in which the distribution or release would be unlawful or to U.S. persons.