Claranova reported stable first-half sales and improved net income

PlanetArt parent Claranova reported €294 million in revenue for the first half of the 2024-2025 year, remaining stable year-over-year despite a shorter holiday sales period. EBITDA grew 23% to €33.6 million, driven by cost reductions and higher-margin products, improving the EBITDA margin to 11.4% from 9.3%.

The company’s net income quadrupled to €9.6 million, aided by operating improvements and reduced financial expenses. The company maintained a strong financial position, with €97 million in cash and €69 million in net cash from operations, despite seasonal fluctuations in its PlanetArt division, the company said.

Key Business Developments

PlanetArt: an improved operating margin and a possible sale under discussion

PlanetArt, the e-commerce subsidiary specialized in personalized objects, reported revenue of €234 million, down 1% at constant exchange rates but stable at actual exchange rates, despite a shorter period for sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With five fewer days of sales, this stable performance reflects the success of our teams in anticipating this impact by implementing more effective marketing campaigns well in advance and by meeting the logistical challenge of deliveries during this very busy period, the company said. Revenue held steady at €234 million, while EBITDA surged 26% to €21 million.

Avanquest: EBITDA margin above 21% and new growth drivers

Avanquest, the software publishing division, reported revenue of €60m for H1 2024-2025 or like-for-like growth of 3%. At actual exchange rates, revenue was down 3%, notably reflecting the share of revenue from nonstrategic activities sold in October 2023.

The division benefited fully from the maturity of its SaaS sales model for proprietary software in its core businesses of Security (Adaware), PDF (Soda PDF) and Photo (InPixio). These SaaS sales today account for more than 92% of the division’s total revenue and is contributing to the increasing contribution of recurring revenue in Avanquest’s sales mix, which reached 80% at the end of December 2024.

Boosted by the disposal of non-core activities in Europe and the improved profitability of the Soda PDF and Adaware businesses, EBITDA for the division rose 23% to €13m. As a result, the EBITDA margin rose by almost 5 points compared with H1 2023-2024, to 21% for H1 2024-2025.

Reflecting its strong focus on innovation, Claranova’s software division has stepped up R&D deployments and projects to optimize its products in its three application segments. Security: the new PC optimization software (PC Cleaner) now features exclusively technology developed in-house, thus allowing for total control over the services offered as well as higher margins on these products. Photo: teams are continuing to diversify audiences in this segment, with resellers as the new target. The acceleration of web testing for the latter, combined with the acquisition of new customers, should, with time, contribute to revenue growth in the Photo segment. PDF: the division is proposing new functionalities, some AI-based, to further enhance the user experience, and is also working on new B2B partnerships to offer higher value-added products. All these developments will drive the division’s growth over the coming months and contribute to improving margins.

“This first half of the year is bearing fruit from the work undertaken by all of the Group’s teams over the past several months to improve profitability,” said Eric Gareau, Managing Director of Claranova. “This is reflected in our half-year results through a significant improvement in our financial performance. Thanks to targeted measures, we achieved solid revenue of nearly €300 million and, above all, improved our operating profitability, which increased again by 22% to nearly €34 million, allowing our net profit to reach close to €10 million.

“These good performances were accompanied, over the period, by a strengthening of our self-financing capacity with operating cash flows of almost €70 million, which allowed us to benefit from a comfortable cash peak of €97 million at the end of December, in line with the seasonality of PlanetArt’s activities.

“The start of the fiscal year was also marked by the launch of our ‘One Claranova‘ strategy, which aims to refocus our activities, significantly improve our financial performance, and reduce our debt. These half-year results are already part of this new trajectory.

“As part of this transformation, we have decided to sell our myDevices subsidiary, marking our exit from the IoT sector, which was no longer strategic for us. Furthermore, we are currently in talks to sell our PlanetArt division. This would lead Claranova to become a ‘pure player’ in software publishing, a sector with strong potential. This strategic evolution would also offer us a more agile and more profitable structure, while significantly reducing our debt.

“The second half of the year will be decisive in bringing these initiatives to fruition and putting Claranova on this new path of profitable and sustainable growth. In any case, we will continue our development with ambition and determination to improve the return on investment for our shareholders.”