HIGHLIGHTS:USD 741.5 million of total revenues and other operating income, USD 64.3 million of EBITDA and USD 122.5 million of operating free cash flow
Successfully adapted structure and operations to effectively accommodate impact of COVID-19
Strong resilience of Digital TV produced a USD 5.9 million increase of EBITDA to USD 96.9 million
Positive momentum in cybersecurity increased gross margins by 22.6%, driven by 57.4% growth in European revenues
IoT portfolio expansion includes launch of RecovR, an advanced asset tracking solution for car dealerships
Better than expected resilience of Public Access business, with USD 8.5 million EBITDA improvement to USD 16.5 million in spite of COVID-related volatility
Strong synergies between business units enabling end-to-end digital security offering spanning content protection, IoT and cybersecurit
Outlook for 2021: revenue growth and EBITDA between USD 65 and 80 million
Proposing a cash distribution (dividend) of CHF 0.10 per bearer share
KEY FIGURES 2020
(In million USD) 2020 2019
Revenues & Other Operating Income 741.5 827.3
EBITDA 64.3 40.6
Operating free cash flow 122.5 19.5
Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland, and Phoenix (AZ), USA - February 25, 2021 - The Kudelski Group (SIX: KUD.S), the world leader in digital security, announced today its 2020 annual results.
In 2020, total revenues and other operating income decreased to USD 741.5 million from USD 827.3 million in 2019. After a weak first half, Group sales strongly recovered in the second half producing a marginal decline of USD 5.3 million from the second half 2019, with cybersecurity and IoT revenues improving and Digital TV materially stable. Compared to the first half 2020, second half 2020 total Group revenues increased by USD 101.3 million, driven by higher sales in all segments.
The Group generated EBITDA of USD 64.3 million, a 58.5% or USD 23.7 million improvement from the previous year. This improvement reflects a strong second half where the Group generated USD 59.4 million, a USD 34.3 million improvement compared to the second half 2019. Overall, the Group generated an operating income of USD 16.1 million, compared to a loss of USD 15.3 million in 2019.
The Group generated USD 122.5 million of operating free cash flow, an improvement of USD 103.0 million from 2019. Working capital improvements drove 2020 cash generation, contributing USD 92.4 million.
SUCCESSFULLY ADAPTED TO COVID-19 REALITY
With the onset of the pandemic, the Group implemented a set of measures aimed at temporarily reducing its cost base to mitigate the business impact of COVID-19.
While the first half was materially impacted by strains related to the pandemic, including reduced levels of demand in the Public Access and Digital TV segments of the business, the Group swiftly adapted its structure and operations to integrate learnings from the first COVID-19 wave and ensure full business continuity in spite of extended lockdowns. In addition, the Group adjusted its marketing and sales approach to increasingly leverage digital channels to accommodate the changing needs of customers.
As a result, the second half showed more resilience than anticipated across the Group's four business segments.
DIGITAL TV: STRENGTHENED RELATIONS WITH OPERATORS AND SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION PORTFOLIO
Digital TV delivered a strong 2020, with USD 345.4 million in net revenues and USD 96.9 million of EBITDA, a USD 5.9 million increase from 2019. Following a slow first half, second half segment revenues were in line with the second half 2019 and increased by USD 36.0 million from the first half 2020. In relative terms, EBITDA margin increased from 23.8% in 2019 to 28.1% in 2020.
Despite the macro-economic conditions created by the pandemic, the Group's partnerships with the largest pay-TV operators worldwide continued to expand.
Altice USA and NAGRA have continued to extend their partnership on antipiracy, leveraging NAGRA's antipiracy expertise based on Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), field investigation and IoT forensic analysis. In addition, Altice USA has successfully deployed NAGRA PROTECT, the leading one-way broadcast content protection to secure and enable a new generation of HD-DTA (Digital Television Adapter). This converter box has complemented the already deployed Altice One platform to provide a consistent user experience among the different consumer devices in the home.
At Claro Colombia, NAGRA successfully launched a cardless-based system with the NAGRA PROTECT as an extension of the original NAGRA Conditional Access System. Originally planned for HFC networks, the solution is also available for IPTV usage and will provide secure and improved service for mass deployment on low-cost set-top boxes.
As part of the long-term agreement between NAGRA and Vodafone Group, the deployment of Vodafone TV has continued to grow during 2020, especially in Eastern Europe. This evolution reinforces NAGRA's strategy of offering a central Security Services Platform providing security services for both open devices and Vodafone TV set-top boxes with an increasingly larger service footprint.
NAGRA Insight is gathering momentum with several operators and gaining market distinction for innovation. Altice USA extended the reach of NAGRA Insight to include newly deployed devices such as AppleTV 4K. Claro Colombia successfully deployed Insight to measure the audience and to provide extended analytics to support Claro's business. NAGRA developed a new Insight module collecting and analyzing audience data from non-connected satellite set-top boxes for Canal . Industry recognitions for NAGRA Insight in 2020 include the Best Data & Analytics Innovation Award at the CSI Awards as well as the AI and Machine Learning Innovation of the Year Award at the VideoTech Innovat
