Future 2024 Half Year results

Future Plc, the global platform for specialist media, today publishes its results for the half-year 2024.

Highlights

Revenue of £391.5 million, down 3% year-on-year, impacted by a modest organic decline (-2%) combined with adverse foreign exchange.
The Future Group returned to year-on-year revenue growth in Q2 with organic revenue growth of +3%.
UK revenue grew by +3% with growth in Go.Compare up +30%, and good growth in B2B. As anticipated, other media performance (digital advertising, affiliate products, events), was impacted by market conditions, down (9)%.
US revenue declined by 11% with an improving trend through Q2. Digital advertising returned to organic year-on-year growth in Q2, notably across direct to client sales.
The Future Group remains highly cash generative with adjusted free cash flow of £126.0m representing 119% of adjusted operating profit (HY 2023: 100%). Cash generated from operations was £130.4m (HY 2023: £117.3m).

Jon Steinberg, Future’s Chief Executive, said, “In December we set out plans to ensure that Future is best positioned to capitalise on opportunities in our markets. These plans are centred on growing a highly engaged audience, diversifying and increasing Revenue Per User and optimising our portfolio. I’m pleased to report that in the early stages of this two-year plan we have made good progress, which will enable us to drive accelerating revenue growth.

Overall trading in the first-half was in line with our expectations. Whilst the market environment remains challenging, we are encouraged by a return to organic revenue growth in Q2, progress which has continued into Q3. Our focus for the balance of the year is on continued implementation of the Growth Acceleration Strategy, with a particular focus on optimising the portfolio and accelerating value creation for shareholders.”

Growth Acceleration Strategy

In December 2023, Future launched the Growth Acceleration Strategy (GAS) to ensure Future is well-positioned to capitalise on future opportunities. This is a two-year investment programme of £25m-£30m to drive acceleration in a compounding model by:

Growing a highly engaged and valuable audience

Online users stabilisation from H2 2023 with growth in Technology and Gaming verticals with total online users of 222m in HY 2024, exiting the half year with 232m online users.
We now have four top 3 leadership positions in key strategic verticals in the US and/or UK. (Source: Comscore MMX, Mobile and Desktop, March 2024, US and UK)

Diversifying and increasing revenue per user

First steps in expanding digital product range in email, social video including social commerce, and digital subscriptions.
Go.Compare year-on-year revenue growth of +30% driven by strong car insurance performance.
B2B returned to year-on-year growth with organic revenue growth of +7%.

Optimising our portfolio

This is a continuous process and is supported by the segmentation of Future brands between Hero, Halo and Cash Generators and the recently announced reorganisation of the Future Group into three distinct business units – B2C, Go.Compare and B2B.

Outlook

The stabilisation of trends and return to revenue growth in Q2 give us confidence in delivering full year performance in line with expectations.
We expect to deliver organic revenue growth in H2 2024 and a full year adjusted operating margin of approximately 28%.
Longer-term, we are confident that the focused execution of our GAS investment programme will drive accelerating organic revenue growth.

To read the full results visit our investor results page