Acast Aktie

Hello, and welcome to Acast Earnings Call for the Q2 2026 Interim Report. Joining us today are our CEO, Greg Glenday from New York; and CFO, Anders Hagg from Stockholm. You're welcome to submit questions throughout the presentation using the form next to the stream, and we will raise during the Q&A held after the presentation.

I would now like to start by handing over to our CEO, Greg Glenday. Greg, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Lizzy. Welcome, and thanks for joining us today. In my section, I'll cover off our high-level performance and momentum, and then Anders will take you through the numbers.

Acast is the world's largest independent pure-play podcast company. We build the infrastructure that allows creators to monetize and advertisers to reach audiences through podcasts across audio, video and beyond. We continue to be very excited about the momentum our strategic approach is generating. We've been working on this for more than a decade, and it's very rewarding to see this pay off.

We strive to be the best place for creators. Great creators bring more valuable audiences, valuable audiences attract advertising revenue. Advertiser revenue attracts and motivates creators and so on. So we have created this infrastructure flywheel for podcasting.

Acast is the engine room at the center of all of this, talented people around the world and industry-leading innovation, technology and data. We want to create an unencumbered relationship between creators, their audiences and advertisers. Creator choice, open ecosystem, no editorial point of view, brand safety, those are the principles underlying everything we do. We believe podcasters aren't defined by audio or video. They're defined by their relationship with their audience, and we're excited to share a big development in how we think about that relationship.

As video becomes an even bigger part of how audiences consume podcasts, we're taking a step toward a unified way of talking about that consumption, aligned with the industry and work that we're doing with the IAB. We're excited to be actively working with them on establishing industry standards for HLS measurement, podcast audience consumption that may be either audio or video or a hybrid of the 2.

And from this quarter, we are moving to report both Listens and Views. Today, our reported audience numbers reflect RSS, audio and HLS consumption. We expect to expand this to include YouTube by our Q3 report.

So when I say Acast is the best place for creators, I mean everything from premium publishers like TED, Le Monde, Perfect Day or Slate to huge independent shows, all the way down to a large number of niche shows with passionate smaller followings.

There are 3 reasons that creators come to Acast and stay. First, we are the best place to monetize. We've now paid out $690 million to our creators since launch. Second, full independence. Creators keep both creative and commercial control over how the show sounds and looks, where it's distributed and how it's monetized. We don't have an editorial point of view that we force on them. We deliver them the tools and create and monetize their shows the way they want to. Third, our global reach is unmatched. One relationship gives creator access to a global audience and revenue. The result, every creator gets the same infrastructure and access to monetization options without losing what makes their show their own.

Now how does that translate to our advertisers? At one end, our premium publishers and our big independent shows pull the demand. Those are vertical sales. We do omnichannel. We're experts in that. They have deep authentic integrations that bring buyers to the household names and their fans. At the other end of the spectrum, niche audiences unlock unmatched scale across more than 140,000 exclusive shows. Our technology aggregates contextual and audience buys, that no other platform can monetize at this depth. For example, 12 big shows may reach 5 million people. We might have 500 niche shows that can reach the same 5 million. From the audience's seat, both deliver a one-to-one relationship with the brand. We package them into one buy, and that's what we mean when we say buy the audience, not just the show.

And as advertisers increasingly want to go both deep and broad at once, running omnichannel campaigns on a handful of handpicked shows, then layering on audience buys on top to extend and deepen their reach. Our sales motions cover that full spectrum, omnichannel brand, programmatic and self-service with precise data-driven targeting. Acast is the only company that does all of this, and we do it well.

That's exactly why we're also great for creators. You don't have to be a household name to earn here. A smaller niche show can be aggregated with others and sold to an advertiser. Every advertiser solution feeds creator monetization, so the flywheel turns even faster.

Underpinning this approach is robust, proprietary data, especially through our subsidiary company, Podchaser. Over the past year, our teams have been working hard to develop Acast intelligence tools on top of this data. One of the things that makes podcasting great is also one of the biggest challenges, fragmentation. Here's a live example of the intelligence layer that powers everything I've just described. Our team can use natural language to plan a campaign in seconds across our whole catalog, something that recently would have taken days or weeks.

In addition to that, you can imagine a long menu of valuable use cases. Some examples our teams are already using include brand competitive snapshots, audience analysis and narrative sentiment with so much more on the road map.

Podcasters have slowly but surely redefined influence, setting the cultural zeitgeist. Look at this data. The black and the gray dotted lines are search interest from Google and YouTube and the purple line is podcast mentions. Whether it's a serious world event or the biggest cultural sporting moments, this pattern is the same.

Podcasts consistently carry more of the conversation than traditional media, well before search interest surges around the event itself. Take the 2026 World Cup. Podcast attention ran at roughly 3x search interest across the 2 weeks leading up to the event, surging closer to kickoff. And that's exactly where the opportunity lies for brands. If you're trying to break through during the event itself, it's incredibly crowded and incredibly expensive. But through podcasting, you can start that narrative early and be part of the conversation organically. This is podcasting, and it's what we call narrative influence.

Acast is the world's largest pure-play podcast company. This is what our global scale and pure focus actually look like, a category of one, specialists, not generalists. Podcasting isn't an add-on for us. It's the entire business. We built Acast to be global, but we prioritize local expertise and execution. We operate in 32 markets, and we have people on the ground in cities and offices around the world. This illustrative example represents the competitors our local MDs compete with on a daily basis.

Of the companies we come up against, only a handful, 4 or so out of the 60 on this chart operate in more than 2 markets. And over time, our business model has grown further and further from Spotify, which has made us stronger partners. The benefit for creators is that one relationship equals a worldwide audience and worldwide revenue.

Podcasting does not need a corporate suit to greenlight a show in every country. It's a meritocracy. A show from the U.K. can be big in Australia or the U.S. if the audience says so. For example, we have a show in the United States whose second largest market is Ireland. We're able to monetize that audience effectively there on day 1. The benefit for advertisers is a single point of entry to a fragmented global market for both individual brands and big global advertising holding companies.

All that's to say, we are very confident in our position for the next phase of podcasting's growth. Our advantages took years to develop, global scale with local execution, platform-agnostic distribution, creator choice and control, full-spectrum sales, motions, self-service to blue-chip omnichannel deals, proprietary data and end-to-end tech, trust earned across the industry, network effects that strengthen with every creator we add. These aren't separate USPs. They reinforce each other. That's what makes us hard to replicate.

Our product road map and approach is really simple, but it's very hard for anyone else to do. We simply listen to our constituents, the creators, their audiences and advertisers. Their desires, their frustrations and their ideas become our road map, and that's what we build. We're obsessed with building and acquiring the tools needed to remove friction from this process and make that flywheel spin even faster. This will throw off more revenue to everyone involved. So this approach is exactly what's driving the results we will now take you through.

Let me give you the headline numbers for the quarter. Net sales were up 28% with 29% organic growth, and that's on top of a similarly strong first quarter. So this isn't a one-off. What I'm most pleased with is that we're growing and getting more profitable at the same time. EBITDA margin of 7% and an EBIT margin of 4%. That combination, strong growth, expanding margins is exactly the shape of business we set out to build.

Zooming out to the first half of the year, the picture is just as strong. Net sales were up 24% with 30% organic growth. But the real story is profitability. Adjusted EBITDA grew by nearly 600% year-over-year, taking EBITDA margin to 6% and our EBIT margin to 3%. That's the clearest proof that our strategy of scaling revenue ahead of cost is working.

So if I look at the key events for the quarter, in Q2, we expanded our video work with Apple Podcasts, launching the first-ever video advertiser campaigns on the platform with blue-chip brands like State Farm and T-Mobile. This is an early vote of confidence in this new advertising format and the start of a broader wave of advertisers coming to the format.

And our roster of high-quality content continues to expand at pace. Three recent highlights. I'm pleased to announce the respected publisher, the Washington Post has partnered with Acast in a deal that will see journalists Carolyn Hax, Shane O'Neill and Michelle Singletary work with Acast Productions to launch and monetize 2 new multi-format shows. Next, The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast - hosted by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Seth Meyers, has joined Acast under a multiyear partnership, bringing household names to our U.S. talent network. And we're also delighted to welcome viral hit show, The Comment Section with Drew Afualo. These signings reflect ongoing success in attracting premium publishers and talent with highly engaging multichannel audiences.

Finally, 2 high-profile award wins this quarter. Divine Intervention, from Acast Creative Studios won a 2026 Peabody Award, one of the highest honors in broadcast storytelling. Acast Creative Studios is the team formerly known as Wonder Media Network, which was acquired at the end of 2024. And Acast Creator Pablo Torre Finds Out won the Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting, a true mark of quality. A Peabody and a Pulitzer in the same quarter, proof of what both podcasting and our creator-centric model can produce.

I'll now hand it over to Anders for a financial deep dive. Thank you. Anders, please take it away.

Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me walk you through the key financial metrics for quarter 2 2026. And we have now updated our audience metrics where reported Listens and Views and Average Revenue Per Listen or View now include all IAB valid Listens plus HLS Listens and Views. And we are working closely with the IAB as HLS measurement continues to evolve.

Our new metric, Listens and Views grew 2% year-over-year. As always, our focus isn't on volume alone, but on the quality and value of each Listen and View. Our updated metric, Average Revenue Per Listen or View reached SEK 0.69 in quarter 2, a record high and 26% growth year-over-year. Net sales reached SEK 776 million in quarter 2 2026, up 28% year-over-year and our highest ever quarterly revenue. Organic growth adjusted for FX and M&A was 29%, broadly in line with the 30% organic growth we delivered in quarter 1. That extends a run to 6 consecutive quarters above 25% organic growth, underlining the consistency of underlying demand.

The gap between reported and organic growth narrowed versus quarter 1 as we saw a much smaller FX headwind in Q2. Gross margin came in at 39%, delivering a gross profit increase of 24% to SEK 305 million. The slight year-over-year softening in margin continues to reflect country and product mix as North America, which carries a somewhat lower margin while it scales, becomes a larger share of the group.

Looking at our segments, we saw double-digit growth across all 3 regions in the quarter again. Europe grew 25% with 26% organic growth and contribution margin improved slightly to 25%. North America continues to show strong growth, up 34% reported and 37% organically, and we saw meaningful margin expansion there, too, with contribution margin reaching 13%, up from 10% a year ago. In absolute terms, Europe and North America contributed almost identically to group growth this quarter, SEK 79 million and SEK 81 million, respectively.

Other markets grew 17% with 13% organic growth and with contribution margin broadly stable at 11%. And overall, this shows strong momentum across all regions alongside continued margin discipline as we scale the cost base.

At group level, adjusted EBIT came in at SEK 32 million, a 4% margin and this compares to minus SEK 7 million and a minus 1% margin in Q2 2025, an improvement of 5 percentage points or SEK 39 million in absolute terms. And this builds directly on the milestone we shared last quarter, our first-ever profitable Q1 and confirms that our operating model continues to scale. On a last 12-month basis, our adjusted EBIT margin now stands at 3%, up from minus 1% a year ago, continuing the steady upward trajectory we've been building throughout the year.

Operating cash flow for Q2 was SEK 50 million, an improvement of SEK 103 million year-over-year. This reflects our return to profitability, EBIT of SEK 32 million this quarter compared to minus SEK 66 million a year ago when results included SEK 59 million of large non-recurring costs. On a last 12-month basis, operating cash flow improved to SEK 176 million, reflecting steadily strengthening cash generation over the past several quarters. And we closed the quarter with a robust cash position of SEK 630 million, giving us the financial flexibility to continue investing in our growth strategy.

And with that, I'll hand back to you, Greg, for closing remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Anders. Q2 was exactly what we set out to do. First, record growth across the board, SEK 776 million in net sales, our highest quarterly revenue ever, with double-digit growth in every region. Second, we're delivering on monetization with ARPLV, including HLS Video, up 26% and new partnerships with top-tier publishers and talent as well as awards continuing to expand our high-value content reach, including The Washington Post, The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast and The Comment Section.

Third, that growth is translating into real scale. H1 EBITDA increased to SEK 87 million and EBIT to SEK 36 million, driven by strong revenue growth alongside disciplined cost scaling. And fourth, as the world's largest pure-play podcast company, we remain uniquely positioned to lead the market shift toward omnichannel, 360-degree monetization for creators. Organic growth continues to run ahead of our long-term target, while margin expansion keeps us firmly on track towards our 2028 EBIT goal, driven in large part by continued market share gains in the U.S., our largest and fastest-growing region.

Thank you, Greg and Anders. We will now start the live Q&A. Please use the message box below and we will put the questions to Greg and Anders.

So first few questions from Andreas at Carnegie DNB. Could you explain the sequential trends in the other revenue growth drivers you have, price, ad load and sell-through rates? You have spoken before that all, including Listens will contribute to growth ahead, and this is the way we should see it also for H2.

Yes, thank you, Andreas. As you know, we don't disclose CPM or ad load or sell-through rates on a quarterly basis, but the primary levers behind what we're calling Average Revenue Per Listen and View, including the HLS views, is sell-through expansion, omnichannel growth, which includes video in the mix with higher CPMs. And then mostly, I can attribute it to more upstream engagement with bigger brand advertisers, so pulling more demand into podcasting itself. So these are really broad high-value advertisers that are, as I've said, not necessarily specifically buying the high sell-through shows, but buying more vertical inventory into the long tail.

Another question from Andreas. You talk of conviction to increase market share further in North America. Any specific and concrete orders or projects you have taken that builds this confidence?

Yes, we're really excited. North America grew 37% organic in Q2, which we believe obviously is taking market share from some of our publicly disclosed competitors. So the way we're doing that is, again, we've been very consistent with upstream relationships with large advertisers really being in service to their objections. They all know that people are spending a ton of time with podcasting. So there's a real desire to participate in those conversations with our creators.

So when you have a willing participant on the customer side, we're really excited about solving those problems, making easier to buy podcasting for big blue-chip brands that are a little bit more demanding and have a slightly higher rigor for who they partner with.

The growth in North America, can you explain a bit more where it comes from? Is it from certain advertiser segments such as retail, finance, telecom, et cetera? And is it broad-based across the U.S.? Or are you stronger in certain states?

Yes. At this point, we're not disclosing regions and states and things like that with sort of where the growth is. I can tell you the big national brands are accelerating. But also on the smaller side, we've been using technology for smaller agencies, maybe smaller cities that want to participate in podcasting. Our self-serve platform, as we continue to evolve the capabilities in self-serve, we've been able to accelerate the small advertisers and the SMBs along with the large blue-chip brands. So kind of attacking the market from both sides has been really exciting. So both are leading to growth for Acast.

And how should we see the cost level going forward? It has increased by 8%, but partly this is related to share-based compensation. So just curious if you expect this run rate to go on or if there will be less growth ahead, assuming the share price is flat, which is a bit of a boring assumption.

Yes. Thanks for that question, Andreas. Part of that OpEx growth reflects the increased social security contributions tied to the incentive program, driven by the share price rising sharply during the quarter, which is more of a mechanical link and not a change in the sort of underlying cost strategy. And we will continue investing in sales and product capacity, but at a pace materially slower than revenue growth, and that framing is unchanged going forward.

We don't guide to specific OpEx growth rate for future quarters, as you know. But if you look back, I mean, our quarter 1 OpEx growth was 2% and in Q2, it was 8%. So year-to-date, that's 6%. So you could -- and the biggest swing between the 2 quarters is the social cost on the LTI program. So year-to-date is probably a better indication than Q1 or Q2.

You have increased FTEs during the quarter. Fair to assume this is mainly within sales and marketing?

Yes, I can take that. We don't disclose. I think it's 15 or so full-time heads that we've added net. And we don't disclose where they are. But I can tell you, as I've said, our -- we're in service to our constituents, the creators, the advertisers. So it's technology, sales and service to the growth.

And final one from Andreas, which is a bit technical, but how should we see taxes going forward? You start to make profits, but you should have some fairly large loss carryforwards, especially keen to understand how we should look at booked versus paid taxes.

Yes. Thanks, Andreas. So as you say, once we start turning a full year profit before tax, there will be a higher tax expense in the income statement than before, but it will not have any cash flow effect as long as we have these losses carryforwards to utilize. And then again, in the period when we do capitalize these loss carryforwards that are not yet capitalized, it will have a positive impact in the income statement, but then not the cash flow impact. So I hope that answers your question, Andreas.

Now some questions from Martin at SB1 Markets. 180-plus shows now video-enabled on Apple, how the CPMs and sell-through rates compare with audio today?

I can take that one. Yes, video, we don't disclose our CPMs, as I've said, but video CPMs, as everyone knows, are higher. But what's interesting about what we're attempting to do, this is really a new mode. We believe that podcast creators don't have to pick. We're trying to give optionality to both the creator and the audience. So the fact that a show can be video or audio depending on what that consumer, that specific consumer is doing, we think that's really exciting. That's sort of a new thing for advertisers. So those blended CPMs will be higher than audio only. So we're excited about that.

Video alone is right now still a small percentage of the podcast industry from a revenue standpoint and a small percentage of our revenue. So we think we're leading the industry. We're leading the way in this sort of multi-functionality, but it's a little too early to report on pricing pressure, but of course, video is going to be higher.

And CPM prices, the overall ad market, how have they developed throughout the quarter?

Yes. Video and omnichannel campaigns have a much higher CPM. These -- that's really what's driving our average CPMs up is that we are including more high CPM packages around these large omnichannel campaigns. So instead of just selling impressions, we've spent a lot of time in the market this quarter.

Acast had a presence in Cannes and a lot of different industry events. And I can tell you that nobody is talking about CPMs. Really, brands are really truly thinking about attention and outcomes and much more tangible results, which podcasting has proven over the years that we can do. So I'm pretty excited about where the puck is going in the marketplace and the fact that podcasting is already there, works really well, delivers outcomes and can deliver high measurable attention.

And Europe seems to accelerate in terms of growth. Any commentary on drivers and outlook?

If I start on that one. I mean the positive thing is that all markets in Europe are contributing. And what Greg mentioned before, our success in working at high levels with the agency holding companies and clients as a general benefit for all markets. And we are covering global decision-makers who can impact budgets across Acast region. So I think those are a couple of explanations. Then I think also in some markets, we had a bit of a softer Q2 last year, which also helps explain some of the strong performance in Q2 in Europe in this year.

And a question from Sam. Can you elaborate on what particularly you see have been driving the increase in ARPU during the quarter? And if we should assume similar levels going forward?

Yes. I think we've been pretty consistent the last few quarters saying that, of course, sell-through rate is important, but getting more efficient, being able to sell deeper into our long slate of shows, I think, is what's going to continue to help grow that. So getting better at selling what we already have, I think, is really important. And I think if we can push demand further and further into our network, the better off we'll be.

So we have a long way to go to get more and more efficient. So I think we have more wood to chop on that. So I'm excited about the potential upside. We're not -- in any way, shape or form, podcasting is really unique. The inventory is dynamic. The shows can be created very quickly. So we're excited about just getting more efficient with how we sell our inventory.

And a few questions from Thierry Danielson. Listens grew only 2%, while ARPLV and fee rose 26%. Is the strategy to keep monetizing the existing pool? Or is M&A back on the table to drive volume growth next?

Yes. Well, that's basically the same question with a little M&A tag on there. But yes, we're opportunistic. I think whether it's -- if it's easier to build it, we'll build it, borrow it, partner or buy it. So again, that's our strategy is figuring out what the industry needs to help us remove friction, and we'll go do it in the most efficient means possible.

And are the new partnerships, so Washington Post, Lonely Island, Drew Afualo, are they content licensing deals? Or do they involve some form of exclusivity or ownership stake? And should we expect more outright acquisitions during H2?

Yes, I would say these are exclusive deals where they're all specific to those shows and Washington Post, these are new shows that we're launching together, so they're a little bit different. But these are exclusive deals. They are coming to the Acast network for us to distribute and monetize those shows exclusively, and that's what we do. So they aren't IP or licensing deals. They're coming to us to host.

One of the things our positioning to the creator economy is that Acast is the best place for independent creators. We don't have an editorial point of view. We don't have an algorithm that changes your content or rewards certain things. It's your relationship as a creator with your audience, and we facilitate that and monetize it for you. So I think having that clear story makes it a very attractive place for creators, people like Seth Meyers that have a point of view that don't necessarily need some editorial help. Same thing with the Washington Post. We're the perfect place for people that want to have a direct relationship with their audience.

And a question from Peter Turgowsky. We saw limited EBIT margin improvement in North America versus Q1 2026, even if growth continued strongly. What factors limited the leverage? And on the other side, what helped Europe to its strong margins?

Yes. Thanks, Peter. Yes, you're right. But, of course, if we compare Q2 this year versus Q2 last year, there is still significant improvement. But as you point out, basically up to Europe, and I think that reflects North America being a younger, less penetrated market, plus the continued local sales investment needed to win the larger managed service deals in the U.S. Growth in North America is also coming from a different product mix versus Europe, which is also affecting gross margins. And then if we look at Europe specifically, there, the increase is primarily driven by product mix versus last quarter.

Great. Thank you. I think that concludes the Q&A. So thank you to everyone who has listened in or watched. The next upcoming quarterly report is our Q3 report, which will be released on October 28. You're, of course, welcome to join us for that presentation. And in the meantime, you can follow us on investors.acast.com to sign up for press releases, news and financial reports, our Acast newsroom or, of course, listen or watch our results as a podcast. Thank you very much, and goodbye.

Good morning, and welcome to Acast's Earnings Call for the Q1 2026 Interim Report. Joining us today are our CEO, Greg Glenday; and CFO, Anders Hagg. [Operator Instructions]

I'd now like to start by handing over to our CEO, Greg Glenday. Greg, the floor is yours.

Thank you, LP. Welcome, and thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Anders, our CFO, now 4 months in and fully hitting his stride. In my section, I'll cover our high-level performance and momentum, and then Anders will take you through the numbers.

We have been very excited about the momentum our strategic approach is generating in the marketplace. We've been working on this vital infrastructure for more than a decade, and it is now paying off. At Acast, we strive to be the best place for creators. Great creators bring very valuable audiences. Valuable audiences attract brand revenue. Once we have the brand revenue, that attracts and motivates creators and so on. You can see how this becomes a self-fulfilling flywheel with Acast at the center. We like to think of Acast as the engine room in the middle of this infrastructure. We have talented people around the world. We have industry-leading innovation and technology, and we have the best data around podcasting. All of that together powers this flywheel.

We want to create an unencumbered relationship between creators and their audiences and advertisers. Creator choice, open ecosystem, no real editorial point of view, we let creators create. We focus on brand safety. Those are the principles underlying everything we do at Acast. So when I say the best place for creators, I mean everything from premium publishers like TED, Le Monde, Perfect Day or Slate to huge independent shows all the way down to a large number of niche shows with passionate smaller followings. We don't have an editorial point of view that we force on them. We do advise our creator partners on best practices we've seen over the years, but we let them run their show, and we think that's really important. We deliver tools to create and monetize your show the way you want to. We believe in creator independence. We meet creators wherever they are to empower them, not control them. The result is every creator gets the same infrastructure and access to monetization options without losing what makes their show their own.

Now how does that translate to our advertisers? The big names still pull the demand. That's vertical sales, where we do omnichannel, deep authentic integrations with buyers and advertisers when they come to us looking for a household name show. But many times, we say to them, you're not actually looking to buy that show, you're looking to borrow their audience. So that's the power of Acast. We can then take niche audiences and unlock scale. Our reach -- our technology aggregates investable audience buys across hundreds of smaller shows that no other platform can monetize at this depth.

For example, a dozen big shows may reach 5 million people. 500 niche Acast shows can reach the same 5 million people. So when we put those 2 things together, we can go vertically deep with a bunch of shows and then go much further horizontal to buy across the audiences. From the audience seat, both deliver a one-to-one relationship with the brand. We package both into one buy. That's what we mean when we say buy the audience, not just the show.

Our sales motions cover the full spectrum from blue-chip omnichannel brand integrations to programmatic to self-serve automated. Acast has solutions that cover all kinds of advertiser needs, and that's amazing news for creators. Not long ago, the video conundrum was a dark storm on the horizon for the podcast industry. Today, video optionality is one of the most exciting work streams at Acast and within the podcast industry. 4 in 5 global podcast consumers both listen and watch. Of those consumers, they fall along this logical continuum. Some listen more, some watch more and the vast majority do both depending on the context.

Everyone I know who loves podcasts, myself included, changes modality depending on the context. Sometimes I'm commuting on a train or exercising or doing chores or walking the dog or driving. That all leads to different listening habits. And it also depends on the context of the content, news or business versus pop culture or comedy or true crime. This is exactly what we mean by narrative influence. It's not audio, it's not video. It's a new mode, a consumer creator relationship that lives across formats.

Why we're built for this? Our newly established video partnerships, which I will touch on in just a minute, gives the creators an open choice ecosystem. We made that years ago on the audio side, and now we're doing the same in video. Speaking of creator choice, we've worked hard to ensure that this applies to video podcasting, too. We're in a unique position in that we have solutions for all the current major platforms, Spotify, YouTube and Apple. That made us the first fully platform-agnostic video and audio distribution monetization company in podcasting.

Earlier this year, we were proud to be an inaugural launch partner for Apple's new video offering via HLS technology. Currently, we have around 90 shows live with video, and we have our first integrated advertiser campaign with Apple launching this quarter. On the Spotify front, they have a new distribution API that we are participating in between creators, publishers and monetizing video on Spotify without switching hosts. YouTube, we have the U.K.'s largest premium video podcast offering. Over 20 of the biggest shows in the U.K. are already live and the U.S. is rolling out this quarter. From an advertiser perspective, this gives you a single gateway to premium audio and scaled video across every platform. The strategic flywheel is omnichannel, earlier bookings, larger bookings and a broad base.

This is what global scale and pure focus actually looks like. We are a category of one, the world's largest pure-play podcast company, specialists, not generalists. Podcasting isn't an add-on for us. It's the entire business. We built Acast to be global, but we prioritize local expertise and execution. This illustrative example represents the competitors our local managing directors compete with on a daily basis. Of the 60 or so companies on this slide, only 5 are in more than 2 markets and only 2 are in more than 3 markets. And over time, our business model has grown further and further from Spotify, which has made us much stronger partners with them.

The creator benefit is one relationship with a worldwide audience plus revenue. Podcasting does not need a corporate suit to greenlight a show in every country. It's a meritocracy. A show from the U.K. can be big in the U.S. or Australia if the audience says so. We have a show in the U.S. whose second largest market happens to be Ireland, and we monetize the audience there as well. The advertiser benefit is a single point of entry to a fragmented global market for both brands and the big global advertising holding companies. All that to say, we are very confident in our position in the next phase of the podcast industry as it evolves.

Our advantages took years to develop. Global scale, local execution, platform-agnostic distribution, creator control and choice, full spectrum sales motion from self-serve to blue-chip omnichannel buys, proprietary data and end-to-end technology trust across the industry, network effects that strengthen every creator we add. These aren't separate USPs. These reinforce each other. That's what makes it hard to replicate. Our podcast road map approach is simple, but very hard to replicate. We simply listen to our constituents, creators, their audiences and advertisers. Their desires, frustrations and ideas become our road map. We're obsessed with building or acquiring the tools needed to remove friction to make this flywheel spin, throwing off more value to everyone involved.

With that, let me move on to our Q1 highlights. Our momentum from Q4 carried straight into Q1. We delivered 20% net sales growth and 31% organic growth when adjusted for FX and M&A. This consistency is the result of deliberate execution, not an accident. North America was our primary growth engine, up 43% organic growth year-over-year, with meaningful contributions from Europe and other markets. And the milestone of the quarter, this was our first ever profitable Q1 with adjusted EBIT of SEK 5 million at a 1% margin, particularly notable given that Q1 is seasonally the softest quarter in advertising.

Looking at key events for the quarter, I've already mentioned our expanded video podcast distribution with Apple Podcasts. We also signed an exclusive ad sales distribution partnership with Slate, one of the most respected names in audio journalism. This validates that the world's best creators choose Acast and it expands our high-value content and editorial credibility in North America. We also added Perfect Day Media with a strong niche portfolio here in Sweden. This leads our long-tail monetization engine, the deep loyal communities that advertisers want.

I'll now hand it over to Anders for a financial deep dive.

Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. I'm now a few months into the role, and I have to say the business momentum you see in these numbers is real and consistent with what I experience every day inside the company. Let me walk you through the key financial metrics for Q1 2026.

Listens came in at 1.121 billion, up 1%. But as we said consistently, our focus is not just on volume, but it's on quality and value per listen. Average revenue per listen or ARPL reached SEK 0.58 in quarter 1, and that's the highest Q1 ARPL we've ever recorded and represents a 19% growth year-over-year. This reflects our continued success in expanding monetizable inventory, improving sell-through and commanding premium pricing through integrated multi-format campaigns.

Net sales reached SEK 645 million in Q1, up 20% year-over-year. Organic growth adjusted for FX and M&A was 31%, continuing our strong growth trajectory. Q1 is seasonally the softest quarter in our industry. So this result reflects particularly strong underlying demand from advertisers. Growth was driven primarily by North America, supported by solid contributions from Europe and other markets. Gross margin came in at 37%, delivering a gross profit increase of 20%, growing at the same rate as the top line. The Q1 margin was in line with quarter 1 2025 and was just like then affected by lower margin in North America.

Looking at our segments, we saw positive contributions across all segments in the first quarter. Europe grew about 16% with 23% organic growth, supported by strong performance in the U.K. While contribution profit in Europe increased, margins decreased slightly, partly impacted by the acquisition of Wake Word Studios. In North America, our momentum remained very strong, serving as a primary driver of group growth. Revenue increased by 43% organically. However, this was offset by a negative currency impact on the reported top line, resulting in a reported growth of 26%. We also saw significant expansion in our contribution margin from increased operating leverage. Finally, other markets delivered 22% growth with 26% organic growth and contribution margins also increased year-over-year. Overall, this regional mix shows that we have strong double-digit growth across all regions while also scaling our cost base.

At group level, adjusted EBIT came in at SEK 5 million, a 1% margin. This compares to a loss of SEK 26 million and minus 5% margin in Q1 2025, an increase of over 6 percentage points. And this is our first ever profitable Q1, a clear milestone and evidence that our operating model scales. On a last 12-month basis, our adjusted EBIT margin stands at 2%, continuing the steady upward trajectory we've been building throughout 2025. Operating cash flow for Q1 was SEK 40 million, including SEK 12 million in positive working capital movements. On a last 12-month basis, operating cash flow was SEK 73 million, reflecting the genuine cash generation that comes with sustainable profitability. And we closed the quarter with a robust cash position of SEK 602 million, giving us the financial flexibility to continue investing in our growth strategy.

And I'll now hand back to Greg for closing remarks.

Thank you, Anders. Q1 was exactly what we set out to do. We delivered 31% organic growth in what is seasonally our softest quarter. We achieved our first ever profitable Q1 with adjusted EBIT positive and improving cash generation. The additions of Slate and Perfect Day Media reinforce our content leadership and our video distribution now spans Apple Podcast, Spotify and YouTube.

Thank you, Greg and Anders. We will now start the live Q&A. [Operator Instructions] And the first few questions come from Andreas at Carnegie, who has posted a number of questions. So the sales organization has expanded and also the costs. Are you happy with the size of the sales organization now? Or should we expect further expansion to handle the market growth?

Great. I'll take that one. Yes and no. So I don't mean to be wishy-washy, but we were really excited that revenue outpaced cost, and we think that will continue. One of the things we track that we don't report on is sales efficiency. So the same way we think about average revenue per listen, we think about our salespeople and what they can handle. And as budgets get bigger, we're getting much more efficient on the sales side. So I think we will invest where we need to call on new advertisers, but our tools and our sales motions really have led us to be much more efficient. So we think that's going to continue. So as revenue grows, we will invest in more people, but not at the same pace for sure.

Could you explain the various growth drivers per region? Given that listens is more or less flat, price, ad loads and sell-through rate must be the drivers, but is it different in different regions?

Yes, I'll take that one, too. Yes, I think it is different in different regions, but the general themes have been our go-to-market, we have everything from, as I mentioned, on the automated side, we go from self-serve to programmatic. We have a hands-on direct response team and then a big omnichannel brand team. All of them are growing. It depends on the region of the advertiser as to where the demand comes from. But we also focus on average revenue per listen. So because that's going up, we're getting much more efficient. And it's not just adding more ads and commercials to popular shows, it's being able to sell shows further into our long tail, selling audiences. This is essentially new inventory. It's inventory that's existed but was low demand, and we're now turning it into high demand. So we're very excited about that.

And then again, different regions because we have different ways to go to market. Australia is a very sophisticated programmatic market. So we're leaning into that. In the U.S., we have access to big budget decision makers. So when we think about the U.S., we think more omnichannel and doing bigger 7- and 8-figure deals with advertisers. So it depends on the country, but we have a solution for all different types of demand around the world.

Great. The gross margin is always weak in Q1 and then improves for the rest of the year. Any reason to see things differently in 2026? And can you explain why the industry has this pattern during the year?

Yes, I'll take that one. Thanks for the question, Andreas. So I mean, it might seem pretty obvious, but I mean, margin is affected by country mix and product mix, where some countries and products have higher margins and some lower. And North America has slightly lower margin due to higher competition. So as the market grows, it will have an increasing effect on group gross margins.

As we also said during the call or the presentation, though is, I mean, quarter 1 is seasonally the softest quarter and our cost of content also contains some element of fixed cost. And as a result, this will also have an effect on our gross margin then so seasonally in Q1. So those are 2 of the factors impacting Q1 and what you can think about margin going forward.

You have a net cash position of SEK 600 million. Why is the finance income -- excuse me, income not higher given the large net cash position?

That's another good question. And to be honest, I think so far, our main focus has been on the business and to make sure that we are profitable and drive profitability. But going forward, of course, we'll be focusing on sort of all different lines of the P&L, improving all metrics.

The pace in activation of R&D looks to have increased. Can you explain the reason for this?

Yes, absolutely. So if you look at the video partnerships that we announced in Q1, our product and engineering teams with similar resource to last year handled the heaviest workload we've ever had at Acast. We're really proud of the fact that we've kept pace with Spotify, YouTube, Apple, these are big organizations with really sophisticated engineering teams, and we were able to keep pace and build these products with them in Q1. So very proud of the pace of R&D. And we're excited about -- again, changing the industry is not easy. And if we can do it in an efficient way, we're pretty excited about that.

And then we have a few questions from Derek at ABG. How sustainable is this ARPL uplift? And what are the main drivers, pricing mix, targeting, programmatic?

Go ahead, please.

I can start on -- yes. So I mean, at the Capital Markets Day in April last year, we did say that we believe ARPL could double over time, so through average ad load and sell-through rates. And we've gone from SEK 0.44 in 2024 to SEK 0.57 in 2025 and now SEK 0.58 in quarter 1, 2026. So the trajectory is where we want it to be. But maybe you want to add some color to that.

Yes. I think the reason that we're excited about the ARPL growth is that -- and I've mentioned this in the last 2 quarters, we're not turning our backs on download and listens, but obviously, the industry has gotten much more sophisticated. So I think 10 years of downloads and listens as kind of the proxy for podcasting, we just talked about HLS video and uploads and there's all kinds of ways that our creators reach the audiences. So the idea that we're only focused on listens, that's going to change over time. We're going to have to find a way as an industry. We're working really closely with all the industry orgs, some of our competitors and partners. We have to get more sophisticated in how we think about these audiences. It's not just RSS listens, there'll be HLS, there'll be video. None of that is currently in our listens number. So our audience number that we report is just listens. So we think as that grows, it's something that we're watching and -- but listens is very directional. It's not a very sophisticated measure of audience.

Great. And any change in the mix between host reads and programmatic or preproduced ads?

Yes. We don't report on the mix as every country and every region is different. I mentioned that there are markets that are more sophisticated with programmatic. There are markets that, for instance, in the United States, one of the great things about our self-serve portal is that there are small ad agencies in Tennessee or Ohio that a company like ours maybe wouldn't send a salesperson to visit them, but we can activate them through our platform and our access to self-serve. So we think every market is different. We treat them differently, but we have 4 or 5 different sales motions that work depending on the demand in that market.

Great. And how would you describe demand visibility today versus a year ago? Are booking cycles getting longer?

Yes, absolutely. One of the things I'm excited about is even 3 years ago, our company and podcasting had very little visibility out into the future. You didn't -- we were kind of booking quarter-to-quarter, and there wouldn't be much second half revenue booked. And again, we don't give guidance, but we see big advertisers. Obviously, they plan earlier. The more sophisticated the brand, they've got their year plan. So we're able to tap in, especially being global at the holding companies, we can tap into that demand earlier and start building programs that make a lot more sense with research and insights. The more time you have, the more sophisticated your campaigns can be, which obviously are going to be larger.

Great. And we have a question from Richard Kramer. How might a potential merger between iHeart and Sirius impact Acast? Would there be an opportunity to work more directly with either of them?

Yes. In fact, I've spent almost 20 years at iHeart. We have a lot of friends over there. We work really well with Sirius. We're sort of partners more than competitors with both of them. I think Sirius has done a really, really good job in the marketplace. They don't have any local radio station licenses. So 2 very different businesses. Neither one of them -- podcasting is not the largest part of either one of those companies, but they both do a good job, and we partner with them. So I'm excited to see. I think it's -- to see what happens in the marketplace, but we don't really comment on -- I'm not really sure what's going on, whether the rumors are true. But I think a satellite company with digital assets, local market radio. I could see why that would make sense. But again, I'm reading about it just like you are.

Great. We have a question from Bernd at Barclays. Can we expect a similar M&A contribution for the full year of '26 than we've seen in Q1?

Sure. I mean I'll start, but Anders has the purse strings. The way we think about it, we've got our strategy and whatever is going to get us there quicker. If it's build it, we'll build it. If it's buy it, we'll buy it. If it's borrow it, we'll borrow it. So we don't -- we're really agnostic into how we solve our problems and whatever is the best thing for Acast and our shareholders is how we're going to approach it. So certainly, we talked about the cash we have on hand, and we want to make sure that we're using that efficiently and has a great ROI for the company.

Yes, nothing to add, Greg.

Great. Roughly speaking, how are you thinking about steady-state contribution margins in each region?

Yes. I mean if I start that one then -- I mean, if we look at Sweden, for example, I mean, we have a very healthy margin level there given our strong market position and gross margin structure. In the U.K., yes, we are market leading and also good margins, although it's slightly different competitive dynamics than Sweden. So I think -- I mean, the big opportunity margin-wise is to bring sort of the North America and the rest of Europe up to sort of U.K. and Sweden levels going forward.

We have a question from Peter. You are stating that North America is the key factor behind the lower gross margin in Q1, same as Q1 2025. Could you please give some insight on the dynamics in North America as we are seeing EBIT margin of 13%, up from 4.1% Q1 2025?

Yes. Thanks, Peter. Good question. As you say, I mean, we also see very much evidence of our scalability also in North America, and that goes across the board. And contribution margin has increased, thanks to that scalability, even though the gross margin was lower. So I think we continue to expect good scalability across the business, including North America. As Greg was talking about before, I mean, yes, we might want to invest in sales resources, but we should be able to grow revenue faster than we have to invest in OpEx.

Thank you. Peter has another question. Could you please share some of your plans for Wake Word Studios? How are you going to leverage the acquisition and make it profitable?

Sure. I'll start. We're really excited about the German market. We've been investing there. Wake Word gives us very similar playbook, obviously, different language. When we bought Wonder Media at the end of 2024, our goal was to assimilate them into our sales process beyond just the content that they create. And that worked so well for us that, again, they're an English language solution that when we found Wake Word, we said, oh, this is the same thing. This is a studio that can help us build bigger campaigns with brands across Germany, decision-makers there, branded content, all of those things. So as we're building that, we're becoming much more efficient. And so we want to follow the same playbook we did with Wonder Media that became Acast Creative Studios. We are doing the same thing with Wake Word in Germany. And frankly, I feel like it's ahead of schedule. They've really hit the ground running and the assimilation has been very smooth.

Great. Another question from Bernd at Barclays. What percentage of your revenue today is programmatic? And where do you think it can go over the midterm? Do you find that programmatic revenues tend to be incremental?

Yes. This has been -- I've been answering this question for 15 years across lots of different channels. But programmatic is fairly misunderstood in podcasting. I think a lot of people, especially smaller companies, think of it as it's either live reads and everything else is programmatic. For us, we think programmatic is a big chunk of what we do. I think it's especially programmatic guaranteed. We have large advertisers that actually work with our salespeople on campaigns. So it's a direct sale, but then they book it programmatically. So we think programmatic will continue to grow. I think it's an important part of the industry. We just want to make sure that it doesn't commoditize podcasting.

I think one of the beautiful things about podcasting is how unique it is and how well it works for brands, but you have to be thoughtful about it. And I think sometimes programmatic can be a little bit to transactional. So we're really excited about things like programmatic guaranteed, our global partnership with Magnite last year. It was -- we did that for a reason. That's a long-term partnership. So I think it's growing. Whether it grows at the same pace, faster, slower, depends on the region, but it is one of the growth areas for us for sure on the revenue side.

Another question from Derek. Are there specific advertiser categories or verticals that stood out positively or negatively in Q1?

Yes. That's another thing we don't break out, but I can tell you as we start to crack a category, advertisers are -- there are advertisers that lead from the front and then there are advertisers that are fast followers. So I think you'll see once we've cracked telecom, then you see competitors coming in, pharmaceutical has been growing. We have -- there's several categories, entertainment. I think, obviously, podcasters are tastemakers. And entertainment is a word-of-mouth marketing segment. So the idea that entertainment, new movies, having them talk about it on a podcast has been really, really good for the entertainment category. So I'm excited about automotive, pharmaceutical, insurance, finance, there's -- pretty much every category has increased curiosity and demand in podcasting. So again, if Acast is a proxy for podcasting, we think we're in really good shape.

Another question from Bernd to Barclays. On Listens, you said your focus is not just on volume, but on quality. Apart from less commercial content that you have discontinued, can you give us a sense of underlying growth for your core portfolio?

We have -- as we evaluate content, we have a couple of ways to do that, and we've got some proprietary analysis we do. But we essentially create a contextual scorecard for content that how sellable, how much demand is there? How brand safe is it? How much demand will it pull in, meaning how much will this piece of content make the phones ring for us rather than us having to proactively sell. So as we look at acquiring content, I think we've gotten really good at figuring out what makes sense for us and how we can monetize it and really derisking that whole process of holding your breath and hoping that the content becomes valuable.

Great. And a question from Richard. Will podcast -- excuse me, will video podcast inventory cannibalize audio? And what video -- what might it do to CPMs and ad pricing?

So no, I don't -- I think it's very additive. The way we think about our creators, some of them will want video, some of them won't. Some of them will want to push video, some of them need to push video. So we're really excited. This is just going to be a complete expansion of audience and inventory. So CPMs will be higher. The market will change. We love the idea of blended modes that an advertiser can do a campaign with us that is going to have audio or video in it, depending on what the consumer is doing. So this is a whole new era for the marketplace. And I think, again, we're locking arms with partners like Spotify and Apple, and we literally are blazing this trail together in the industry. So we're really excited about it. Obviously, video has higher CPMs. Audio is slightly lower. But I think our CPMs have been creeping up because it's efficient and it works, and we can prove that it works. So you get what you pay for, and we certainly don't want to be a race to the bottom. I don't think podcasting is commoditized, and we're going to make sure it stays that way.

Okay. Great. Just check if we have any more questions. Right. I think that concludes the Q&A. Thank you to everyone who has listened in. The next upcoming quarterly report is our Q2 report, which will be released on July 23, and you're, of course, welcome to join us for that presentation. In the meantime, you can follow us on investors.acast.com to sign up for our press releases, our news and our financial reports, follow us on our Acast newsroom and of course, listen to our results as a podcast. Thank you, and goodbye.

Good morning, and welcome to Acast's Earnings Call for the Year-end Report 2025. We have our CEO, Greg Glenday; and CFO, Anders Hägg, who will present Acast's results for the quarter. You are welcome to submit questions throughout the presentation using the form to the stream, and we will raise the questions during the Q&A held after the presentation.

I would now like to start the presentation by handing over to our CEO, Greg Glenday. Greg, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Lizzy. Good morning, everyone. Greg Glenday here. I am the CEO of Acast, and it is a pleasure to be here with our new CFO, Anders Hägg, who hit the ground running with us this January. I'll start with a high-level performance and the momentum we're seeing, and then Anders will dive into the numbers.

For those of you new to the story, Acast is the unique powerhouse of podcasting. We power the business of storytelling at a time when brands are waking up to the value of narrative influencers in the market. We act as the central engine in a highly fragmented ecosystem, streamlining a market that has traditionally been hard to navigate.

For creators, it's hard to be discovered. For advertisers, it's hard to buy. We solve both sides of that equation. We are absolutely obsessed with removing that friction, and we do so with tech and talent. We help creators find highly engaged audiences by distributing their content across every relevant channel, not just one.

We are the world's largest pure-play podcast company powering the entire commercial ecosystem. Our geographic spread of listens and revenue is unmatched, giving creators worldwide access and advertisers a single point of entry to a global market. We combine best-in-class technology with local market boots on the ground. That's how we connect the right advertisers to the right audiences, thereby making sure they maximize the return on ad spend. We deliver this value at a massive scale, powered by a network of over 140,000 podcasts and a deep commitment to proprietary technology.

We generate clear return on investment for more than 4,000 advertisers annually, a roster that grew by 20% last year alone. The ultimate proof is in the payouts. Since our inception, we have paid out more than $550 million. That's over $0.5 billion directly to our creators. We're very proud of that.

Our business is built on a flywheel. More creators bring more scale. More scale brings more advertisers, more advertisers drive higher payouts. It's a self-reinforcing cycle that makes the natural home for podcasting Acast. By combining our top-tier creator network with our advanced infrastructure, we are uniquely positioned to deliver value at scale and lead the next chapter of this industry.

We've established ourselves as the leading global powerhouse driving the business of podcasting. We are truly a category of one, building the world's largest pure-play podcasting company, home to household names like Peter Crouch and Giggly Squad alongside globally recognized brands like TED Audio Collective and publishers like Slate, The Economist and The Guardian.

Our success is built on the true creator independence. We attract the world's best talent with exclusive partnerships because we empower them to turn influence into income without controlling their content. For advertisers, we don't just sell spot ads on big shows. We operate a smart marketplace delivering audiences to them. By combining big show influence with the deep loyalty of our niche creator communities, we deliver a level of engagement traditional media simply can't match.

By acting as the cohesive force at the center of the fragmented market, we unlock the entire media landscape, allowing brands to buy a narrative influence at scale across audio, video, social and beyond. This efficiency drives higher ROI for brands while spreading revenue across our entire creator base. So let's have a look at some of our highlights in the fourth quarter.

We closed 2025 with Q4 and sustained momentum. Revenue grew 27% in the fourth quarter and even more impressively, 31% of that was organic. Our expansion in North America continues to be a major growth engine with revenue up 50% year-over-year. Most importantly, this growth is disciplined. As our revenue has scaled, our profitability is following suit. This quarter, we delivered an adjusted EBIT margin of 6%, proving the efficiency of our model.

Now let's look at the full year 2025, where we reached yet another milestone with our first ever full year positive operating profit and cash flow. Revenue grew 29% with organic growth of 33%. North America for the full year was also the growth engine with revenue up 60% year-over-year in North America. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 5%. And as I mentioned, we are delighted to present a positive EBIT margin for the full year. Anders will break down the numbers in just a moment.

Looking at some positive highlights in the quarter. First, our move to the NASDAQ Stockholm main market in November, reflecting our maturity and the consistency of our growth. In France, we secured an exclusive partnership with Le Monde, the premier French language news brand with nearly 2 million monthly listens across its podcasts. This is a validation of our presence in a key European market and proves we are the partner of choice for world-class content creators of all kinds.

In December, we significantly deepened our footprint in Germany with the acquisition of Wake Word Studios and Podius. Germany is a high potential market where we've seen incredible momentum. By acquiring Wake Word Studios, we've added a strong production house in Munich and Berlin to our stable. This latest milestone in the global rollout of what is now called Acast Creative Studios joining Acast Creative Studios U.S., U.K., Australia and Sweden. Now we have France and Germany as well. We are marrying Wake Word's production expertise with Acast global sales engine to deliver omnichannel campaigns, audio, video, social and live for major brands.

We also acquired Podius, their independent media planning platform. Podius is a powerful tool for German advertisers, making it easier than ever to discover and plan podcast campaigns. We're very excited about the synergies with our U.S. subsidiary, Podchaser. So the acquisition of Wake Word brings their existing podcast portfolio consisting of 50 titles generating more than 2 million monthly listens. We will leverage the expertise of both the Wake Word and Podius teams to enable even more advertisers and agencies to access podcasting in a smart way. This acquisition is a clear investment in our German growth engine, while the immediate financial impact is minimal, the rationale is built on strategic long-term upside, where we effectively simplify the path for German agencies and advertisers to scale their podcast spend with Acast.

So with that operational momentum as a backdrop, I'll hand it over to our new CFO, Anders, for a deeper dive into our financial performance.

Thank you very much, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Really nice to be here. So my name is Anders Hägg, and I've been on board since the 15th of January this year. So this is finishing week #4. But I have a long background in the food and the FMCG industry, having held positions at Scandi Standard, Arla Foods and Unilever. And most recently, I had the CFO position at Food Folk, which is equivalent to McDonald's in the Nordics. But enough about me, and let's start with having a look at our listens and average revenue per listen in the quarter.

And listens grew 5% year-on-year, exceeding 1.1 billion. But let's be clear, our focus isn't just on volume, it's on quality. We are prioritizing commercially valuable listens that drive the most value for our advertisers. And that strategy is paying off. Our average revenue per listen increased by 21% to a record SEK 0.66, which is an indicator of our ability to generate more value out of every single listen on the platform. This drove a 27% increase in reported revenue and 31% organic growth, reflecting that we maintained a solid business momentum into the seasonally strong fourth quarter.

I'll break down our geographical performance in more detail shortly. But for now, the key takeaway is that we are seeing consistent performance across all segments with North America remaining the primary driver of our group level expansion.

Turning to our ad sales breakdown for the full year. Our total listens finished the year essentially flat at 1% growth. However, we significantly expanded our monetizable inventory, which grew by 26%. And this trend reflects what we have mentioned throughout the year, namely that we have more tools to grow rather than just pure volume in listens. We've also seen a continued increase to the sell-through rate up to 43%, reflecting the share of inventory we actually sell. This growth in both capacity and utilization is a clear indicator of our improving efficiency.

On the pricing side, our average CPM increased to USD 15, partly as an effect of our work on integrated campaigns where we bundle audio with video and social assets. These multi-format buys allows us to command a premium rate that reflects the high creative value we provide to brands. This resulted in SEK 2.4 billion in ad sales, up from SEK 1.8 billion last year, contributing to a total revenue of SEK 2.5 billion, a full year growth of 29%.

The key takeaway here is that we have multiple levers for growth. We are not dependent on list and volume alone. We can drive value through ad slot density, sell-through efficiency and pricing. And we see continued upside across these drivers for both mid and the long term.

Our gross margin remained healthy at 40% for the quarter, which translated into a 28% increase in gross profit. We saw no material changes to our product mix affecting this development. And as you can see in the chart on the right, our gross profit is following a steady upward trajectory in line with our revenue growth.

Looking at our segments, we saw positive contributions across the board in the fourth quarter. Europe grew by 16%, supported by strong performance in Continental Europe. In the U.K., we saw a robust organic performance. However, this was offset by a negative currency impact on the reported top line. And while contribution profit in Europe increased, margins remained flat year-on-year. In North America, our momentum remained very strong, serving as the primary driver of group growth. Revenue increased by 50%, and we saw contribution profit continue to expand as we benefited from the operational leverage of a scaling revenue base.

Finally, other markets delivered 21% growth with contribution margins holding stable year-on-year. And overall, this regional mix demonstrates that we are growing effectively in our established markets while successfully scaling our presence in the U.S.

Taking a broader look at our top 3 markets for the full year, 2025 marked a significant shift. As Greg already mentioned, the U.S. has now become our largest market, contributing 32% of our total annual revenue. And in the U.S., we delivered 61% revenue growth for the year. And more importantly, this was accompanied by a substantial improvement in contribution profit, demonstrating that we are achieving meaningful scale in the region.

The U.K. grew by 12%, reaching SEK 775 million, and we maintained our contribution margins there, reflecting the stability of our most established market. In Sweden, revenue increased by 14%, and this is a healthy result, especially coming off the back of a very strong growth in 2024. And while the contribution margin was slightly lower year-over-year, it remains at a very high level. So in summary, 2025 was a year of broad-based growth across our core markets with the U.S. specifically delivering a step change in both top line expansion and profitability.

Looking at a group level for the fourth quarter, it's clear that our scaling revenue base is driving a continued expansion in profitability. In quarter 4, we generated an adjusted EBIT of SEK 41 million, reflecting an adjusted EBIT margin reaching 6%, which is double the 3% margin we reported in the same period last year. And for the full year 2025, we delivered a 1% positive adjusted EBIT margin and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 5% and this performance is in line with the top end of our prior guidance for 2025.

Our improved profitability has been matched by increasing cash generation. And in the fourth quarter, we generated SEK 67 million in operating cash flow, bringing our full year total to SEK 62 million, which is also in line with our prior guidance set out for 2025. We concluded the year with a robust cash position of SEK 589 million.

And with that, I'll hand the floor back to Greg for his concluding remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Anders, and welcome again. So to wrap up, we concluded 2025 with powerful momentum, delivering 31% organic growth fueled by strong demand across every segment. North America continues to lead the way with an exceptional 50% increase. Within that, the U.S. has now become our largest revenue market, contributing 32% of our total annual revenue and a growth rate of 61% in the U.S. alone. Our acquisition of Wake Word Studios and Podius platform give us the tools we need to scale effectively in Germany, a market where we are already seeing strong traction.

Taking a step back, this year has been definitive proof of our model. We delivered a 4-point percentage increase in our adjusted operating margin, a clear demonstration of our ability to scale efficiently and turn revenue growth into meaningful profitability. We entered 2026 with a proven framework. As global ad spend continues to shift toward podcasting, Acast is uniquely positioned to capture that move.

We have the global scale, the specialized expertise and an integrated platform that works for both the world's biggest brands and its best creators. In fact, we aren't just poised to participate in this evolution. We're very proud of our leadership role in establishing how this market is evolving. Our strategy to give creators as much freedom to meet their audiences wherever they are, including newly unlocked video partnerships with major players like YouTube, Spotify and more and the depth of our network, we are truly, truly a class of one, the world's largest pure-play podcast company. Thank you for your time.

We're now happy to take your questions. Lizzy?

Yes. So we will now open up for questions. So please use the message box below and we will put them to Greg and Anders.

So question number one comes from Andreas at DNB Carnegie. His question is, prices are improving quite significantly. Can you explain why this is and how we should think about prices going forward given the various drivers?

Sure. Thank you, Andreas. Good question. I think the short answer is quality. I think the quality of our delivery from ad ops to the type of talent we have is directly reflected in the CPMs. Brands are more and more focused on outcomes and not just pricing. So we're moving into a world where you get what you pay for and CPMs are earned. So we're very proud of that, especially as we do more omnichannel campaigns. It's not just a transactional race to the bottom with volume and scale, it's quality and outcomes.

So we think anybody can charge anything they want on a rate card with a CPM, but it's another thing to earn it. What the advertisers pay for and what you want to achieve are 2 different things. So supply and demand, high quality, great ad operations and efficiency.

Great. Second question also comes from Andreas at DNB Carnegie. His question goes, you do not provide any guidance or outlook for 2026, but you have the long-term targets. Should we assume a gradual path towards the 2028 targets? Or can there be a lumpy road? I know quarters may fluctuate, but I am more thinking about yearly performance.

Yes. Thanks for that question, Andreas. And I think -- I mean, your assumption seems pretty reasonable. I mean we will not provide specific guidance for individual years, but we expect to make continued progress in the years ahead in order to deliver on these targets. And yes, I mean, our strategy is built to deliver high value to advertisers across all formats, ensuring that we're well positioned for the years ahead. So -- but thanks for that question.

Great. We have another question from Andreas at DNB Carnegie. In the U.S., can you again explain the structure of that market? It is fragmented, but can you mention some competitors and how you make sure you can continue to grow and take market share over the coming years?

Great. Andreas was up early today. Thank you. Another good question. Yes, we're very excited about the progress in the U.S. I think one of the things that's special about Acast is we have dozens and dozens of competitors in each local market, but not one of them competes with us globally. So in the U.S., it's -- nobody has a really dominant market share. So it's become very competitive. What we focused on is being the largest pure play.

The U.S. competitive set, I think most of our big competitors have other businesses that are really important to them. They also do podcasting. We're the largest company that just focuses on this narrative influencer market. We think this is very bespoke. It's not a subset of radio. It's not a subset of satellite. So in the U.S., we have some really strong, great competitors, but they have other businesses.

So for example, if I have an hour to spend with a CMO at a big brand, we are going to talk about podcasting and narrative influence for that hour. We're not going to talk about local or national radio. We're not going to talk about satellite or music streaming. We are focused. So it's a very different market, and I think our specialization has really allowed us to accelerate in the U.S.

Great. We have another question from Andreas at DNB Carnegie. And the question is, given the interest you highlight that advertisers are not just buying podcasts, but podcasting, how do you see this impacting the sell-through ratio over the coming years?

I actually think it takes pressure off of our sell-through rate because we have the longest tail. And I think it's something that we should be leaning into. As we think about advertisers want to do deep integrations, and we've moved upstream to talk earlier in the planning process with brands and high-level agency and holdco people. As we do that, they're looking for deep integrated campaigns with a handful of big shows, but then they also want to use long-tail audience buys to get higher scale.

So we'll go vertically very deep with cross-platform omnichannel campaigns, and then we go horizontally to sell those audiences. So we're the only people that can do those 2 things, and we think they go hand in hand.

Wonderful. We have a question from Peter [indiscernible]. Could you please take us through what is happening in the market? I noticed minimum revenue guarantee is substantially reduced year-over-year. Will it have a negative impact for sales in 2026?

Thanks for that question, Peter. And we don't comment on our separate minimum guarantee contracts, but the short answer is no.

Wonderful. We have another question from Peter [indiscernible]. Looking at your costs and adjusting for extraordinary factors, I noticed administration costs increased by SEK 20 million from Q3, and this has historically been fairly stable. Is the substantial increase related to costs for in the incentive program and the changes you are taking for the incentive programs for -- in the future?

Yes, Peter. Thanks again for the question. I mean it's partly related to the LTI program, but also related to consultancy costs. And we're also seeing a slight increase due to the increased number of staff.

Great. We have a question from Richard Kramer. How might regional mix and focus on quality titles allow Acast to see further growth in CPMs in 2026 and beyond? And is there scope for brand partnerships to become a meaningful contributor to that revenue?

Sure. Thanks, Richard. So yes, I think the regional mix is great. And I think podcasting is one of the only mediums, if not the only one that really is borderless. You can have great content in any market, and it can travel. There are things that are evergreen. So we're really excited about our position being global that we don't have borders either. Like I said, we don't have the same competitor in any more than 2 markets. So we're able to talk with global brands about an execution at the center that we then localize. So we think that's really exciting for us.

The other thing about the long tail is to the listener, a niche community, generally, podcasts are consumed as a one-to-one. It's the content creator speaking direct to that audience. If I'm listening to a small podcast, it's still an intimate one-on-one event for me as the listener. It doesn't matter if it's a podcast that 10 million other people listen to or a small community of 1,000. So us being able to tie these smaller shows together and create a larger buy and making it frictionless for the advertiser is the holy grail of what we're trying to get to.

Wonderful. Thank you. We have another question from Richard Kramer. Do you have any advertiser which represents a 10% share of any of the regional markets?

We don't make specific comments on advertiser and advertiser spend. But in general, we have a healthy balance. Again, we work with more than 4,000 advertisers. The way we go to market, I think, is important for that. We didn't choose just one path. I think we didn't take the easy way out. We've got a self-serve platform that's going really well. We have programmatic.

So those are 2 very transactional platforms. Then we have direct response and performance, which is like the traditional way of buying podcast in the U.S. And then, of course, I think we are the pioneers in omnichannel in surrounding the audiences across lots of different formats. So high touch, there's a lot of creativity in an omnichannel campaign, but that allows you to charge. That's where we get sort of the larger 7-figure advertising partnerships or on the transactional size where we can scale.

So being able to deliver different things to different advertisers in the way they want to transact with us is really important. It's not the easy way, but I think it's a way that we've created a moat for ourselves.

Great. We have another question from Richard Kramer. Has Spotify's retreat from originals and exclusives opened up new potential clients for Acast? And can you provide some examples? What would you need to do to win representation of studios like Goalhanger in the U.K.?

Sure. And it's a 2-part question, Richard, but I would say I can't comment on Spotify's strategy, but I can tell you that Spotify, as you saw earlier or in fourth quarter, we're a key partner for them in their video distribution. Spotify is an important part of how we reach our audiences, right? They're a great end-state partners. So as we think about originals and exclusives, we're looking for the best audience and the best monetizable inventory. So we've got some proprietary ways of evaluating inventory.

As I've said over and over, downloads and listens are really important metrics, but they're not very sophisticated. So being able to look at quality listens, quality inventory and thinking about whether that's originals or content that other people are producing, that's great.

People like Goalhanger is wonderful content, and we're focused on, again, monetizable listens. We don't care where they come from. I think there's lots of creators like Goalhanger that have lots of scale for what they do, but not global scale like we do. So we think there's lots of room to work with creators like Goalhanger across the world.

Wonderful. We now have a question from Bernd Klanten. What are your 2026 targets for organic net sales growth and EBITDA margin?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Bernd. As we said before, we don't make specific guidance for 2026. But as you know, our target is to achieve 10% EBIT margin in 2028, and we expect gradual growth towards this target. And likewise, for growth, we said that we expect a CAGR of 15% until 2028. So that's on the same lines, that's the aim for 2028.

Great. And we have another question from Bernd again. Given significantly tougher comps in 2026, how are you thinking about growth in North America this year?

Yes. So we think North America has tons of upside. There's a lot of global decision-makers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Dallas. So we're really excited about the upside. We think because North America and the U.S. are so fragmented, we think it's an exciting time to be pioneers in podcasting in the U.S.

Great. We have another question from Bernd. Both sell-through rate and ARPL have seen significant increases over the past 2 years. What can you do to continue increasing both?

Yes. I think there's -- I don't want to say an endless, but there's a high ceiling for both of those. We think we are just getting started. There's tons of green space to both spread revenue further into our long tail. So there's lots of inventory available in the long tail and then as podcasting continues to grow. So we think it's going to be both organic and structural.

Great. And another question from Bernd. Can you help us size the opportunity of multichannel campaigns for you? Have you seen any impact from Spotify revamping their ad infrastructure?

Sure. Again, I don't -- I'm not sure I understand how Spotify revamped their ad structure, but I can't comment on them. But for us, again, getting upstream is it's a very logical thing to do for us. So if you think about any advertiser, any global Fortune 500 brand or Ad Age 100 brand, when they come to us, if they want to do transactions in audio, we're happy to do that. But that limits sort of what you can ask for. As you work upstream with advertisers, we're solving their brand problems. We're not solving a transactional pricing problem. We're solving a marketing problem for them. So that unlocks much, much, much larger budgets.

Great. And another question from Bernd. What can you do to reduce the impact of unrealized currency exchange losses, the impact of which has been outsized this year. Can you hedge?

Yes. Thanks, Bernd. That's a very good question. And I mean, we are working on our FX processes, and this is something that we will focus on this year. So we need to come back on that.

Great. So that concludes, I think that's all we've got time for, and that concludes the Q&A today. I will now hand back over to you, Greg.

Great. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are Happy to have you all listening in. The next upcoming quarterly report is our Q1 report, which will be released May 5. You are welcome to join us for that presentation. In the meantime, you can follow us on investors.acast.com to sign up for press releases, news and financial reports. Our Acast Newsroom is always available or listen to our financial results as a podcast. Thank you so much, and goodbye.

Good morning, and welcome to Acast's earnings call for the Interim Report covering the period January to September 2025. We have our CEO, Greg Glenday; and CFO, Emily Villatte, who will present Acast's results for the quarter. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to start the presentation by handing over to our CEO, Greg Glenday. Greg, the floor is yours.

Thank you, LP. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for listening in. I'm Greg Glenday, the CEO of Acast, normally operating out of our New York office. But today, I'm thrilled to be over in Stockholm. I'll take you through our business highlights and performance for the third quarter before handing over to Emily, who will cover our financial performance in detail. For new investors, Acast is the world's largest independent podcast company. Podcasting is a very fragmented ecosystem, making it hard for creators to be discovered and for advertisers to buy. We're solving for this.

We help podcast creators reach highly engaged audiences by maximizing their reach through distribution across all relevant channels, and importantly, maximizing their monetization across those channels. We do this by leveraging both our human expertise and technology, connecting advertisers who seek to maximize their return on ad spend to these valuable audiences. And we do this on a global scale. We are, in fact, the only true global independent podcasting company with our geographical spread of both listens and revenue unmatched by any competitor. This gives creators access to audiences and revenue worldwide and advertisers a single point of entry to a fragmented global market. We truly hold a unique position in the rapidly changing media landscape. Podcasting is moving into an exciting phase that takes the industry beyond audio only. As the influencer market continues to mature quickly, the concept of premium narrative-led influencers is taking shape. Podcasters will be the centerpiece of this valuable category where brands can unpack a more nuanced story.

As audiences redefine consumption and brands seek authentic connections, Acast can deliver this value at scale. This is thanks to our extensive network of more than 140,000 podcasts and the technology investments we have made and our commitment to innovation. Annually, we generate clear value for more than 3,300 advertisers by maximizing their return on ad spend. And this creates clear value for our creators. Since inception, we have paid out more than $550 million to our creators, over $0.5 billion to the creator economy. These dynamics create a powerful self-reinforcing loop that lays the foundation for strong network effects.

More creators and larger advertisers and larger audiences strengthen our position with brands. Getting more advertisers to spend more means we can deliver more impactful campaigns, which enhances revenue generation for our creators and makes us more attractive home for new shows. I'm incredibly excited about our future and the opportunity we have. I'm very confident in Acast's core strengths, our top-tier creator network, advanced technology platform. This will continue to enable us to deliver immense value at scale for brands and advertisers, driving the next chapter of our success.

At Acast, we're building a one-of-a-kind global podcast network, fostering relationships with creators of all sizes and specialties. Our roster includes household names and large independent podcasters like Peter Crouch, the Giggly Squad alongside established powerhouses such as TED Audio Collective and leading publishers like The Economist, The Guardian and The Athletic. Our exclusive partnerships with hundreds of thousands of the world's most talented creators is our greatest asset. Our track record of helping them monetize their content and build sustainable businesses is our most powerful proof point.

We provide them with all the tools and support they need to focus on what they do best, creating. We're their partner and their success is our success. Our network is both broad and deep, which is a key differentiating factor. It allows us to precisely match advertisers with their ideal audiences. This is the real magic of a unique platform like Acast. In addition to larger shows that I mentioned, the ability for us to extend ad campaigns into the longer tail of niche creators unlocks a lot of value. We describe this as selling podcasting, not just podcasts.

Advertisers get to extend their reach to an aggregate audience that, in many cases, is even more engaged and loyal to their podcasters. And of course, this approach brings revenue to more creators in our network, which is the ultimate goal. So, our advertising customers who combine those larger integrated buys on specific shows with scaled horizontal audience buys are seeing amazing results. This makes our advertising much more efficient, scalable and effective, which means better returns for everyone involved.

So, let's have a look at the highlights of third quarter. We maintained our strong growth momentum into the third quarter, driving 35% net sales increase, which -- of which an impressive 41% was organic growth. We're seeing tremendous momentum in North America, which continues to be the primary growth engine again this quarter, while also supported by strong growth in Europe. With increasing revenues, profitability improvements continue to follow. This quarter, we noted an EBITDA margin of 6% and an operating margin of 2%.

This development validates our strategy and execution with us continuing to deliver strong growth and continued profitability improvements. In conjunction with this report, we've announced new financial target framework that builds on our strategic momentum. The new framework clearly defines our commitment to sustained value generation for the coming multiyear cycle. The new financial targets that we've set out are organic net sales growth CAGR exceeding 15% in the 2025 to 2028 time period. We are also committing to deliver an EBIT margin of 10% by 2028. And I'd like to point out that that's a milestone, not a final destination.

This new framework supersedes all of our previous formal financial targets, including the old full year 2025 targets. I do want to be clear, however, our commitment to delivering against our previous financial goals for the full year 2025 remain firm. We are heavily committed to delivering 3% to 5% adjusted EBITDA margin and positive operating cash flow for the full year 2025. How do we get there? The trajectory is supported by the operational discipline we've established, continued broad-based local market profitability, improvements and leverage gained by effectively scaling against our global cost functions.

Our conviction in our growth trajectory stems from our unique position in a large, growing and significantly under-monetized market, where consumption is 4.5x higher than advertising spend. We also have a track record of outgrowing the market that we plan to continue. We benefit from global scale, which is anchored by our strong positions in the U.K. and the Nordics with vast potential for growth in the U.S. and Continental Europe. We will continue to drive monetization growth, expanding the amount of listens and the average revenue per listen we generate. We provide a scalable, accessible and sophisticated marketplace for advertisers to tap into the power of podcasting in audio, video and beyond at scale.

Over the past 5 years, we've achieved strong improvements in local profitability across key markets. As we showed previously in our Capital Markets Day in April, the data clearly illustrates that in established markets like Sweden and the U.K., our very high market share has translated into higher local contribution margins. This is compelling proof that we are effectively monetizing our scale. And as we continue to grow and execute on our focused local strategies, we're confident this strong margin trajectory will continue, and we are targeting further improvements in local profitability across the board.

This next slide shows how those local market improvements are taking effect at the group level, demonstrating our successful execution over the past 5 years. As the dashed group line shows, we've successfully driven total group contribution margin from 8% in 2020 to above 17% as of Q3 2025, last 12 months. Our Europe segment in dark blue represents the highest margin development, currently delivering 23%. Apart from Sweden and the U.K., it's worth reminding you that this also includes markets that are on a strong upward trajectory. Another important driver of the group development is North America, which has improved significantly over the past 3 years to reach 11%, which we expect to continue delivering improvements benefiting the group's profitability. Our other markets category are following a similar path, also reaching 11%. This momentum across our segments enables continued expansion of the group margin, confirming our strategy is effective. Sustaining this momentum across our segments will enable us to continue expanding our group contribution profit.

Another crucial driver of our profitability is how effectively we are scaling against our group-wide global costs. These are costs for global shared services covering our central functions, including product, administration, finance and legal. The data clearly shows a substantial improvement. Since 2020, we've successfully scaled these costs down from 33% of sales to 17% on a last 12 months basis by Q3 2025, which is proof of our operational leverage at the group level. We remain absolutely committed to continuously optimizing these global costs. Our goal is to ensure they remain a diminishing percent of our growing revenues, which is key to enabling further profitability improvements across the entire group.

This chart brings together 2 key elements we just discussed, contribution margin and global costs to show how they translate directly into our EBIT margin. This shows our operational leverage in action. Our strategy is to continue growing the dark blue contribution margin while seeing decreasing share of global costs to drive further EBIT increases. For several years, like 2020 to 2022, the high relative size of our global costs meant that despite an improving contribution margin, our EBIT margin remained largely negative. The hard work over the last few years have paid off and expanding contribution margin and declining global costs have driven adjusted EBIT up and over the zero mark by Q3 '25 on an LTM basis.

The operational momentum is not stopping there. We expect this trend to deliver sustained margin expansion as we continue to realize this leverage. We've set the structure, and we continue to execute our strategy to ensure further profitability improvements. The foundation of our growth is an unmissable market opportunity. We are actively participating in a large and growing market where podcasting ad spend is catching up with consumption. This is key for us. We are riding a powerful secular tailwind where consumption already exists, and the ad spend is playing catch-up. Our strategy is to systematically remove barriers and obstacles between this emerging demand and our valuable supply. This growth ensures that we are the primary beneficiary of this market growth. We are global. We've built strong positions and successfully monetize scale in our high share markets like the UK and Nordics. We are seeing strong momentum and massive growth in the highly strategic U.S. market, laying the foundation for strong long-term growth opportunities. And we're also growing our reach and scale in Continental Europe.

Finally, our growth strategy is more efficient than ever, benefiting from increasing campaign sizes on the direct sales side and an elevated use of our low-touch channels, meaning our sales process is becoming inherently more efficient over time. As clients continue to buy larger deals and place more of their transactions in our low-touch channels, our revenue grows while the relative cost of servicing those transactions grows much slower, reflecting operational leverage. By leveraging this established position in the market and our operation model, we are set to translate our opportunity into delivery for our upcoming financial targets. Everything we've shown from local market profitability to scaling global costs feeds into these goals. We are confident in delivering organic net sales growth exceeding 15% on a CAGR basis for the period 2025 to 2028 and achieve EBIT margin of 10% by 2028. I also want to be clear that the margin set out again for this 2028 is a milestone, not an ultimate destination. Our path built on validated execution informs our clear commitment to long-term value generation.

Now let's look at the business highlights for the quarter that serves as evidence of our ongoing success in optimizing low-touch sales channels. At the end of July, we announced a new partnership with Magnite, the world's largest independent omnichannel SSP. Magnite has over 100 partners on both the demand and supply side integrated. In essence, it provides a wider choice of DSPs for which to buy our premium ad inventory. Advertisers can now simply plan and execute campaigns across podcasts in addition to CTV and video, all from a single Magnite interface. This is crucial because it solves a major pain point and allows us to capitalize on the trends of brands incorporating podcasts into larger multichannel campaigns. This robust programmatic approach is a step in maximizing value for 140,000 creators.

By making our inventory easier to buy programmatically, we are strengthening our opportunities to increase flow of transactions into our low-touch channels, ensuring our scale translates directly into higher revenues and greater profitability. It's also a clear signal that podcast advertising has come of age when players with the scale as big as Magnite enter this space.

Now let's look at the other major engine of our low-touch strategy, our self-serve ad platform. This channel is crucial because it allows us to efficiently and instantly onboard the long tail of smaller advertisers curious about podcasting. By enabling them to plan campaigns with less direct sales effort this platform provides another powerful source of operational leverage for the group. Let's have a look at how it works before I hand over the mic to Emily to run you through the financial performance of Q3.

Thank you, Greg, and I love that demo. It's such a beautiful showcase of the efficiency and scalability of our platform. So now let's look at our financial development in the third quarter. We start by having a look at the development of our listens and average revenue per listen. Our listens growth rebounded to positive territory in Q3 with a 1% year-on-year increase. As noted in our previous calls, our focus on commercially valuable content has really paid off and our inventory increased by more than 25% versus last year. Importantly, we've also continued to benefit from expanding ARPU or average revenue per listen, which increased by 33% to reach SEK 0.58 in the quarter, clearly reflecting that our monetization strategy continues to pay off.

Now as Greg mentioned, we have continued to benefit from a strong sales momentum into Q3 with our revenues growing 35% year-on-year to reach SEK 642 million. And adjusted for currency effects and contributions from Wonder Media Network, the organic growth rate was 41%. We maintained a solid gross margin at 39% in the quarter, resulting in a gross profit of SEK 252 million, and this reflects a 31% gross profit increase versus last year. And I will note that there were no material changes to product mix or yield affecting the gross margin development at the group level and our steady gross profit trajectory remains intact.

Looking at the performance by segment, the strong growth this quarter was driven primarily by North America, as you can see here, while Europe also delivered solid growth as well. And sales in Europe increased by 27%, delivering 32% organic growth. And Europe's contribution margin itself was slightly lower this quarter, which was an effect of a product mix in this segment only, resulting in a lower gross margin in the quarter. But as you can see, the absolute profit contribution grew and remained solid. Our momentum in North America has remained very strong, resulting in 58% year-on-year growth with an outstanding 64% organic growth rate. This has spurred strong increases in our contribution margin for North America, which stood at 16% for the quarter, demonstrating great operational execution. Our other markets delivered 11% organic growth. Though sales grew 4% reported, and this was negatively affected by foreign exchange movements. So, this development laid the foundation for a maintained profitability uplift.

Our reported EBITDA was SEK 38 million, corresponding to a 6% EBITDA margin, and this reflects a 3-percentage point improvement versus last year. And our EBIT margin amounted to 2% in the quarter. And actually, if we look at this on an LTM or last 12-month basis, our adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 88 million, reflecting a 4% margin, showing that this upward trend in our underlying profitability remains very strong. On to operating cash flows, where operating cash flow gains have followed the profitability development. Our operating cash flow was SEK 20 million in the third quarter, including a small negative impact from working capital changes, meaning that our operating cash flow was SEK 50 million on an LTM basis. And by the end of the quarter, our cash position was a robust SEK 548 million. So, with that, I would like to hand back over to Greg for a final wrap-up before we open up for Q&A.

Thank you, Emily. So, to summarize third quarter, we have strong momentum with 41% organic growth, and I'm very glad we have sustained strong performance in North America, which remains the primary engine. This growth has spurred further profitability improvements with an EBITDA margin of 6% for the quarter, reaffirming the strength in our business model. We will now open it up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] So, the first question comes from Andreas at DNB Carnegie. On the long-term financial targets, where do you see the greatest potential among your various levers, listens, sell-through rates, prices, ad loads, other video platforms or other? And just to be clear, the ambition is for organic growth, sorry, -- is that correct?

Correct. Organic growth is the ambition. And I think there's potential in all of those, not to cop out on the answer, but I think sell-through rate and revenue per listen is going to be a metric that we really think about a lot because we believe that as we spread -- as advertisers become more sophisticated in buying podcasting, not just podcasts, we're going to be positioned to spread a lot of that revenue into the longer tail. So, we will have a higher sell-through rate on the network itself as opposed to just the larger shows.

And another question from Andreas. On the EBIT margin target, how do you see your costs developing? You have invested in sales and marketing, but can the organization as it stands today, handle a majority of the expected growth? And how is the need for further R&D investments?

As you heard Greg notes previously, we are both going to deliver operating leverage against our market operations, and that will drive an increased contribution profit, but we will also scale against our global costs. Possibly, the greatest leverage will come from scaling against our global costs. So that is where we see the key contributor. Greg, anything to add there?

Yes. I would just say that as we scale, I mentioned the low-touch environments like programmatic and self-serve, which those will continue to scale without a lot of cost needed. Obviously, we'll do some R&D and some innovation and invest in improving those products, but certainly not at the scale that the revenue will grow. And the same thing with direct sales. Our sales teams have gotten more efficient. The deals are larger. So, we expect that the revenue will be able to scale much faster than any investments we need to make. But we certainly will be -- it's an innovative market, and I think I'm very proud of the product and engineering teams we have. So, we will continue to invest in R&D so that we can continue to lead this marketplace.

And we have a question from Derek at ABG. Could you give some flavor on the performance of your various European markets given the growth improvement, the U.K., Sweden and others?

Yes. And we aren't breaking out in great detail all of the specific markets. But I can tell you, our strategy of global excellence and an Acast strategy around the world for best practices, coupled with the ability for our local markets to compete in a unique way has been really helpful to us. I think that's unique to Acast. The French podcasting market is different, and we have a different market position than we do in Germany. So, we look at each market as high, medium or mature, and the strategy is a little different in each market. So, us being able to separate global excellence with local execution has been a real key for us.

And another question from Derek. What uplift have you seen from the Magnite partnership so far, specifically on fill rates, CPMs and programmatic share of revenue? And how quickly can that ramp up globally?

Very quickly. I would say, besides just Magnite, I think we've spent a lot of time building -- putting the pipes in place for programmatic. It takes a long time to put the pipes in place and then driving demand through those pipes, turning the faucet on is a whole different story. So, we've seen tremendous programmatic growth even before the Magnite partnership. We're just getting that off the ground. So, we're about 6 weeks in. So, we've seen some good directional indications, but we expect that to continue.

And another question from Derek. An update on exclusive ad sales partnerships like -- the Athletic. What's the pipeline for similar network level deals? And how do they impact your gross margin profile?

Yes. We love partnerships like the Athletic. As they continue to grow and for example, they launched Pablo Torre Finds Out, the Pablo Torre Podcast in the U.S. becomes part of the Athletic and then immediately joins the Acast sales slate. So, we're really excited about those kinds of high-quality partnerships. We have quite a few in the pipeline. I think the word is out that we're a really good way to monetize those products for teams like that even if they have a direct sales team. So that strategy has really worked. It's high-quality, reliable inventory. Advertisers love it and listeners love it, and that's -- those are the 2 criteria that we care about.

And another question from Derek. On Q4, how has the quarter started? And how sensitive is your outlook to any potential late quarter cancellations?

We have had good momentum this year. We don't guide specifically on future quarters as usual, but we expect fourth quarter is always robust, and we're prepared and to finish strong this year.

Another question from Derek, on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube platform dynamics. What's the latest on distribution mix and any economics that could shift the open ecosystem advantage you've historically emphasized?

Yes. It's actually a more complex question than it sounds, but we're working very closely with all of our platforms. The beauty of podcasting and what makes it special is there's no intermediary between the creator and the audience. And the audience seeks out these podcasts. They're not served algorithmically. So, Acast has built over 10 years on being agnostic as to how the creators. We don't want to get in the way with how the creators reach their audiences. We want to support all of those platforms. So, we're the open ecosystem, agnostic, platform agnostic. We work closely with each of them, but there is a different set of economics depending on RSS versus video. And I think we are leading the way in cross-platform omnichannel creator relationships. So, we work with each of them individually, and we gear our product and our audience growth against each platform individually.

And another question from Derek. Given the improved structural growth in the podcast ad market lately, is it fair to say that cyclical sensitivity related to coming years growth outlook has decreased?

It's a good question. If we look back at where we were a couple of years ago in 2022, the ad market situation, including the podcasting ad market was under more pressure than what it is today. It's always hard to predict what the future will hold, but we're certainly in a better position now than where we were both as a company and as an industry than what we were a couple of years ago.

And a question from Andreas at DNB Carnegie. Where do you see the strongest demand from advertisers? Is it for larger podcasts or a more broad-based demand?

That's a great question. It's both. But I would say we're more excited about the broad-based demand because, again, that's how podcasting matures. If I think about pattern recognition and my years in media, I think the analogy would be people used to buy websites. Advertisers used to buy individual websites. And over a few years, that very quickly morphed into buying the Internet, right, buying digital audiences. So, we're excited about selling the big shows and doing deep integrations. And I don't think, that's going anywhere. I think advertisers love the idea that you can integrate into a show in a very authentic way. But at the same time, the true growth and the real excitement is being able to sell podcasting audiences to those brands.

So, a brand may go -- and truthfully, the best partners we have on the advertising side do both. They go deep with individual big shows, and then they use the long tail to accelerate that growth and generate impressions against a longer tail.

And we have a question from Matt Anderson. When the EBIT margin reaches 10%, at what level do you assume the gross profit margin will be?

We haven't guided specifically on the gross profit margin moving forward. We believe that the main leverage in the future will come from scaling against our operating expenses. And whilst we're on this topic, I think this EBIT margin of 10% really reflects a significant progress and the team are entirely focused and committed to delivering against it. But we've also highlighted the 10% margin is not the final destination, and we believe that we can improve the margin beyond that as well. And how long that takes to get to the end destination, we don't really know. And the industry is still evolving. But regardless, we aim to improve our EBIT margin profitability in the mid and the long-term.

And a question from Bernd at Barclays, which has several parts to it. So, what drove the return to strong growth in Europe? How are you thinking about top-line contributions to your over 15% midterm target by region? How are you thinking about medium- to long-term ARPU numbers? Is the current level a new normal? And can we expect it to further expand from here?

Sure. I'll take that. In Europe, beyond just the U.K., we've seen our strategy of going upstream to the advertisers and not just waiting for them to discover podcasting but going upstream and essentially making a market has really worked for us in Europe. It kind of desensitizes Acast from some of the macro trends when we can go into blue-chip advertisers and create our own growth. So, that was our strategy this year. We have slightly easier comps in Europe, but that's really not the driver. The driver is returning to upstream sales process, bringing more revenue into the sector, and then obviously closing and showing results for the brands so that they continue to come back. Emily, anything to add there?

I think that's perfect. You covered it.

Another question from Bernd at Barclays about your growth in North America. How much of that is driven by bigger ticket sales versus volume?

It's both. I would say the larger advertisers in North America have really started coming into the space. And again, bigger brands, a brand with a direct response, brand with a small budget, there's only so much they can do. But when we start to talk to the blue-chip advertisers, people that have $1 billion global budgets, even dipping their toe into podcasting is significant. So, we're excited about the larger ticket deals, but also, as I mentioned, our efficient sales channels. So, more smaller advertisers and more revenue from the larger advertisers is a really good one-two punch strategy.

And another question from Bernd. What's your estimate for your U.S. TAM, TAM target addressable market -- total, sorry. What do you think you can achieve in terms of market share?

Yes. I don't believe we've broken out individual market shares, but I can tell you, the U.S. is really competitive. I think there's no one with a dominant market share in the ad marketplace. And our competitive set, generally, when we run into somebody in a customer's office, it's somebody that maybe has a larger business where podcasting isn't their primary focus. So, as I said, what's wonderful about Acast is we compete differently in every market. So, I think there's incredible, incredible upside. We're just scratching the surface in North America and particularly in the U.S.

Great. And final question from Bernd. The partnership with Magnite sounds promising. Has something changed that didn't make such a programmatic partnership viable before but does now?

Yes. I think we just have an amazing team. Our biz ops, ad ops, our tech teams, it's not easy. You can't just be a rep firm or a sales house and plug into a company like Magnite. So, it's taken a lot of work behind the scenes in getting those pipes connected. So, a press release takes a few minutes, but it was probably 6 to 8 months of prep work. So, a lot of work went into hooking up the pipes, and now we're excited to turn the water on.

Great. And I think that concludes our Q&A. So, Greg, I shall hand back over to you for closing remarks.

Wonderful. Thank you, LP. All right. Thanks to everyone who listened and watched. The next upcoming report is our year-end report, which will be released the 11th of February 2026. You are welcome to join us for that presentation. In the meantime, you can follow us on investors.acast.com to sign up for press releases, news, and financial reports, our Acast blog, or listen to our financial results as a podcast. Thank you, and goodbye.