LiveRamp Announces Second Quarter Results

Revenue up 9% year over year

GAAP Operating Margin of 5% and Non-GAAP Operating Margin of 20%

Operating Cash Flow of $36 million

Raises Fiscal 2024 Guidance

SAN FRANCISCO: LiveRamp® (NYSE: RAMP), the leading data collaboration platform, today announced its financial results for the fiscal 2024 second quarter ended September 30, 2023.

Q2 Financial Highlights1

• Total revenue was $160 million, up 9%.
• Subscription revenue was $126 million, up 5%, and accounted for 79% of total revenue.
• Marketplace & Other revenue was $34 million, up 25%.
• GAAP gross profit was $119 million, up 13%. GAAP gross margin of 74% expanded by 3 percentage points. Non-GAAP gross profit was $121 million, up 9%. Non-GAAP gross margin of 75% was flat year-on-year.
• GAAP operating income was $8 million compared to a loss of $29 million. GAAP operating margin was 5% compared to negative 20%. Non-GAAP operating income was $32 million compared to $17 million. Non-GAAP operating margin of 20% expanded by 8 percentage points.
• GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.07 and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.43.
• Net cash provided by operating activities was $36 million compared to $21 million.
• Share repurchases in the second quarter totaled approximately 490,000 shares for $15 million, bringing the fiscal first half total to 1.3 million shares for $35 million.

A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results is provided in the schedules to this press release.

“We posted strong second quarter results, with both revenue and operating income exceeding our expectations; operating margin was a record high and operating cash flow was positive for a fifth consecutive quarter,” said LiveRamp CEO Scott Howe. “We had our best new logo quarter in two years, including the addition of multiple Fortune 500 customers, demonstrating the traction our Data Collaboration Platform has with marketers looking to more fully leverage their first-party customer data across the digital advertising ecosystem.”

______________
1 Unless otherwise indicated, all comparisons are to the prior year period.

GAAP and Non-GAAP Results

The following table summarizes the Company’s financial results for the fiscal 2024 second quarter ended September 30, 2023 ($ in millions, except per share amounts):

A detailed discussion of our non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results is provided in the schedules attached to this press release.

Additional Business Highlights & Metrics

• In August 2023 we were selected as a 2023 Google Cloud Partner of the Year. LiveRamp was recognized as a “Global Industry Technology Partner of the Year” for delivering embedded solutions that help customers enrich their Google Cloud environment and extend value to wherever their data lives.
• In October 2023 we announced that our identity capabilities are now natively available within AWS Entity Resolution and support additional identifier types. With this integration, marketers, publishers, tech platforms, and agencies can extend the interoperability of data in the cloud to marketing and advertising destinations using RampID.
• In August 2023 we expanded our reach in the MarTech space by announcing a new partnership with Sendbird, a global in-app conversations platform with over 300 million monthly active users. Joint customers of Sendbird and LiveRamp can now power personalized marketing and consumer experiences using LiveRamp's identity solutions. For the first time marketers can bring together media exposure logs and marketing technology exposure logs to build a more robust view of the customer journey.
• The Company’s globally scaled Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) has more than 165 supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs) live or committed to bid on RampID™ and ATS, including The Trade Desk, Xandr, Yahoo, Amobee, Criteo, Adobe Ad Cloud, and Roku Oneview.
• To date, over 16,000 publisher domains and over 70% of the comScore 100 publishers, have adopted ATS, including Amazon Publisher Services, Microsoft, Hearst, CafeMedia, Leaf Group, Prisma Media and Burda. Through these integrations, LiveRamp is now connected to over 92% of consumer time spent online in the US.
• We recently announced new partnerships with Epsilon, FreeWheel, and Yahoo that extend the RampID footprint and give brands greater reach to data-driven premium advertising inventory:
  • In September 2023 we announced that our connectivity solution, ATS, is now interoperable with Epsilon’s identity framework.
  • In September 2023 we announced that we are integrating RampID with FreeWheel, a leading supply-side platform for CTV publishers.
  • In October 2023 we announced an expanded partnership with Yahoo to scale advertising addressability and reach by making Yahoo’s ConnectID interoperable with RampID.
• LiveRamp ended the quarter with 99 customers whose subscription contracts exceed $1 million in annual revenue, compared to 92 in the prior year period.
• LiveRamp ended the quarter with 895 direct subscription customers, compared to 920 in the prior year period.
• Second quarter subscription net retention was 101% and platform net retention was 104%.
• Current remaining performance obligations (CRPO), which is contracted and committed revenue expected to be recognized over the next 12 months, was $339 million, up 16% compared to the prior year period.

Financial Outlook

LiveRamp’s non-GAAP operating income guidance excludes the impact of non-cash stock compensation, purchased intangible asset amortization, and restructuring and related charges.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2024, LiveRamp expects to report:

• Revenue of $165 million, an increase of 4%
• GAAP operating income of $8 million
• Non-GAAP operating income of $29 million

For fiscal 2024, LiveRamp updates its guidance and expects to report:

• Revenue of between $632 million and $637 million, an increase of between 6% and 7%
• GAAP operating income of between $8 million and $11 million
• Non-GAAP operating income of between $97 million and $100 million

Conference Call

LiveRamp will hold a conference call today at 1:30 p.m. PT to further discuss this information. Interested parties are invited to listen to the call which will be broadcast via the Internet and can be found on LiveRamp’s investor site. A slide presentation will be referenced during the call and can be accessed here.

About LiveRamp

LiveRamp is the data collaboration platform of choice for the world’s most innovative companies. A groundbreaking leader in consumer privacy, data ethics, and foundational identity, LiveRamp is setting the new standard for building a connected customer view with unmatched clarity and context while protecting precious brand and consumer trust. LiveRamp offers complete flexibility to collaborate wherever data lives to support the widest range of data collaboration use cases—within organizations, between brands, and across its premier global network of top-quality partners. Hundreds of global innovators, from iconic consumer brands and tech giants to banks, retailers, and healthcare leaders, turn to LiveRamp to build enduring brand and business value by deepening customer engagement and loyalty, activating new partnerships, and maximizing the value of their first-party data while staying on the forefront of rapidly evolving compliance and privacy requirements. LiveRamp is based in San Francisco, California with offices worldwide. Learn more at LiveRamp.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended (the “PSLRA”). These statements, which are not statements of historical fact, may contain estimates, assumptions, projections and/or expectations regarding the Company’s financial position, results of operations for fiscal 2024 and beyond, market position, product development, growth opportunities, economic conditions, and other similar forecasts and statements of expectation. Forward-looking statements are often identified by words or phrases such as “anticipate,” “estimate,” “plan,” “expect,” “believe,” “intend,” “foresee,” or the negative of these terms or other similar variations thereof.

These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause the Company’s actual results and experiences to differ materially from the anticipated results and expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements.

Among the factors that may cause actual results and expectations to differ from anticipated results and expectations expressed in forward-looking statements are uncertainties related to rising interest rates, cost increases, the possibility of a recession, general inflationary pressure, geo-political circumstances that could result in increased economic uncertainties and the associated impacts of these potential events on our suppliers, customers and partners; the Company’s dependence upon customer renewals; new customer additions and upsell within our subscription business; our reliance upon partners, including data suppliers; competition; rapidly changing technology’s impact on our products and services; and attracting, motivating and retaining talent. Additional risks include maintaining our culture and our ability to innovate and evolve while operating in a hybrid work environment, with some employees working remotely at least some of the time within a rapidly changing industry, while also avoiding disruption from reductions in our current workforce as well as disruptions resulting from acquisition, divestiture and other activities affecting our workforce. Our global workforce strategy could possibly encounter difficulty and not be as beneficial as planned. Our international operations are also subject to risks, including the performance of third parties as well as impacts from war and civil unrest, that may harm the Company’s business. The risk of a significant breach of the confidentiality of the information or the security of our or our customers’, suppliers’, or other partners’ data and/or computer systems, or the risk that our current insurance coverage may not be adequate for such a breach, that an insurer might deny coverage for a claim or that such insurance will continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, could be detrimental to our business, reputation and results of operations. Other business risks include unfavorable publicity and negative public perception about our industry; interruptions or delays in service from data center or cloud hosting vendors we rely upon; and our dependence on the continued availability of third-party data hosting and transmission services. Our clients’ ability to use data on our platform could be restricted if the industry’s use of third-party cookies and tracking technology declines due to technology platform changes, regulation or increased user controls. Changes in regulations relating to information collection and use represents a risk, as well as changes in tax laws and regulations that are applied to our customers which could cause enterprise software budget tightening. In addition, third parties may claim that we are infringing their intellectual property or may infringe our intellectual property which could result in competitive injury and / or the incurrence of significant costs and draining of our resources.

For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, please refer to LiveRamp’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for our fiscal year 2023 ended March 31, 2023, and LiveRamp's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q issued in fiscal year 2024.

The financial information set forth in this press release reflects estimates based on information available at this time.

LiveRamp assumes no obligation and does not currently intend to update these forward-looking statements.

To automatically receive LiveRamp financial news by email, please visit www.LiveRamp.com and subscribe to email alerts.

LiveRampⓇ and RampIDTM and all other LiveRamp marks contained herein are trademarks or service marks of LiveRamp, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.