(12 May 2021, Taipei, Taiwan) - Appier today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2021, where encouraging progress was made in three key areas - business expansion, market expansion, and product development.
◆ Appier’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceeded US$100 million for the first time in the first quarter of fiscal 2021, achieving an annual growth rate of 38%.
◆ In terms of market expansion, Appier has achieved initial success in the US market in the first quarter.
◆ In terms of product development, Appier strengthened its product portfolio by leveraging a dual-track strategy of enhancing existing capabilities through internal research and development (R&D) and expanding product capabilities through mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Today’s announcement includes the acquisition of automated customer chat service company, BotBonnie which joins Appier in the conversational marketing realm. AIXPERT, Appier’s self-serving marketing solution powered by AI, helps companies acquire new customers and achieve marketing automation, also received recognition.
In Q1 of 2021, Appier’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached US$100.2 million, surpassing US$100 million for the first time. Compared to the ARR of US$72.8 million in Q1 of 2020, the annual growth rate was 38%. Expanding existing customer relationships was a key factor in the growth of ARR. In terms of revenue, Appier's first quarter revenue performance was US$26 million with an annual growth rate of 31%. Appier maintained a steady growth of 30% in revenue, and revenue in Q1 has exceeded revenue forecasts by approximately 10%. Another important indicator is the growth of the net revenue retention rate in the past 12 months (LTM NRR), which reached 119% in Q1. The year-on-year gross profit in Q1 increased by 44%, surpassing the revenue growth rate of 31%, mainly due to the gross margin improvements compared to last year.
Appier’s stability in revenue is evident through the growth of ARR and gross profit, which is a sign of the quality of business income. Appier’s profit and loss (P&L) has also improved compared to the same period last year. Due to revenue growth and increased profits, the EBITDA margin has increased by 9 percentage points compared to the same period last year (excluding costs associated with the IPO). In terms of market expansion, Appier has also continued to enter new markets and strengthened the penetration rate of existing markets. It has achieved initial success in the US market in Q1.
Appier today announced the acquisition of BotBonnie, an automated conversational engagement service company. BotBonnie uses a SaaS platform to create chatbots for companies with multiple online communication channels to strengthen online interaction with customers. Currently, BotBonnie has provided services for many international brands. This acquisition will strengthen Appier’s competition in conversational marketing and, along with its native AI capabilities, will allow Appier to help customers build their personalized customer services.
Appier's innovative AIXPERT “self-driving” marketing service was also recognized by the market in the first quarter. AIXPERT has a complete set of AI-driven marketing automation modules that allow marketers to view and manage cross-platform marketing activities on a single platform, use AI to discover high-value users, reduce budget overrun, and optimize the effectiveness of app downloads. In terms of technological innovation, Appier also uses AI technology to expand the processing of unstructured data, such as text analysis and recognition, image feature and style recognition, image automatic labeling, dialogue data analysis and strengthening first-party data in a multi-pronged approach - all establishing Appier’s brand differentiation.