Tough day for PubMatic fans -32%
I've seen fans of PubMatic on Commonstock. Curious how they're feeling today.
Pubmatic is a programmatic advertising company. They projected weaker revenue in the short-term future, amplifying concerns about economic vulnerability and delaying an anticipated recovery.
PubMatic’s second-quarter financial results reflected tough macroeconomic conditions hitting the digital ad industry, as revenue was up just 0.5% year over year.
PubMatic squeeked out an adjusted profit of $1.3 million, but that was down -90% from year-ago levels, due largely to losses stemming from one of its top 10 ad buyers having filed for bankruptcy protection.
Connected television remained a driver of business growth, however, with CTV revenue climbing 30% year over year.
PubMatic projected third-quarter results that suggested a further slowdown, including revenue guidance for between $58 million and $61 million. That prompted downgrades from multiple stock analysts.
Co-founder/CEO Rajeev Goel remains confident in PubMatic’s underlying business and its prospects to boost its addressable market through new products.
Neither shareholders nor stock analysts were pleased with PubMatic's forward guidance, as both Macquarie and Oppenheimer cut their ratings on the stock from outperform to their equivalent of neutral.
In particular, the bankruptcy of a demand-side ad buyer highlighted the counterparty risk that PubMatic's business model carries. That should become less of a factor when the ad market rebounds, but as long as macroeconomic conditions remain difficult, that risk will remain heightened.
PubMatic did have more positive things to say about its long-term prospects. The recent release of its Activate feature to directly insert order transactions programmatically on PubMatic's platform will expand its total addressable market by almost $65 billion, and the more recent Convert unified commerce media solution could add another $10 billion.
More broadly, PubMatic sees industrywide consolidation helping its position in the field. The company processed 48.8 trillion ad impressions, up 35% from the year-ago quarter, and PubMatic had 13% more active publishers on its platform than it did 12 months ago.
The outstanding question, though, is whether PubMatic's expansion efforts will pay off quickly enough to satisfy increasingly impatient investors. At this point, shareholders seem skeptical, and PubMatic will probably have to demonstrate its turnaround through more favorable financial results in future quarters in order to convince them of the company's full potential.
People who I've seen buying Pubmatic who I'm curious how they're feeling about Pubmatic today: @rpinvestments @logicalthesis @conorvalue
