Claranova reports 12% second-quarter growth
Also announces ChatGPT integration in Ink Card app
PlanetArt parent Claranova reported improved second-quarter results. With second-quarter 2022-2023 (October to December 2022) revenue of €218 million up 13% at real exchange rates and 2% at constant scope and exchange rates year-on-year, Claranova’s positive growth momentum is now back on track, the company said. Reflecting this trend, the Group had six-month revenue of €315 million, up 12% at real exchange rates (up 1% like-for-like).
“Claranova’s growth momentum at the start of the year remained on track in half-year 2022-2023 with record revenue of €315m and 12% growth,” said Pierre Cesarini, Chairman-CEO of Claranova. “This performance benefited from solid sales by the PlanetArt division which is once again delivering organic growth. Our marketing efforts are starting to produce results as we continue to identify new and more efficient customer acquisition channels to optimize our acquisition costs. The Avanquest division reported solid H1 revenue of €57m driven by subscription-based sales. Our IoT division displayed a comparable trend with recurring revenue up 30% in the first half. We also took advantage of the critical end-of-year period by ramping up marketing investments to strengthen the customer bases of our flagship divisions, Avanquest and PlanetArt. And while these investments for future growth will temporarily impact H1 results, they will also bolster earnings in the second half and improve the Group’s profitability. In a highly inflationary global environment where all technology companies continue to be impacted by customer acquisition costs, we are confident that the transformations we started to implement more than a year ago will contribute to strong sales and boost our profitability for the full year.”
Revenue trends by division for H1 2022-2023:
|
(in € million) |
July-Dec. 2022 (6 months) |
July-Dec. 2021 (6 months) |
Change |
Change at constant |
Change at constant |
Change at constant |
|
PlanetArt |
255 |
227 |
12% |
1% |
12% |
1% |
|
Avanquest |
57 |
50 |
13% |
6% |
8% |
1% |
|
myDevices |
3 |
2 |
27% |
13% |
27% |
13% |
|
Revenue |
315 |
280 |
12% |
2% |
12% |
1% |
Revenue trends by division for Q2 2022-2023:
|
In €m |
Oct.-Dec. 2022 |
Oct.-Dec. 2021 |
Change |
Change at constant |
Change at constant |
Change at constant |
|
PlanetArt |
187 |
163 |
14% |
3% |
14% |
3% |
|
Avanquest |
30 |
28 |
8% |
4% |
2% |
-2% |
|
myDevices |
1 |
1 |
10% |
0% |
10% |
0% |
|
Revenue |
218 |
192 |
13% |
3% |
13% |
2% |
PlanetArt: organic growth back on track
Maintaining the momentum of the first quarter, PlanetArt reported a return to growth with revenues of €187 million in second quarter, up 14% at real exchange rates and 3% at constant exchange rates. And despite the limited scope of this gain, it nevertheless confirms the benefits of the new customer acquisition strategy being implemented by PlanetArt’s teams in a sector where marketing constraints related to Apple’s ATT (App Tracking Transparency) continue to have a significant impact, the company said. Bolstered by this positive business trend, this division reported revenue of €225 million for the first six months of 2022-2023, up 12% at real exchange rates (+ 1% at constant exchange rates).
In conjunction with the marketing transformation initiated a year ago, the division is also continuing to make significant investments in R&D, including developments in artificial intelligence designed to make PlanetArt’s products even more accessible.
In other news, the company announced it has integrated AI-powered ChatGPT technology into its Ink Cards app in an effort to help its users to write more complex and heartfelt greeting card messages. The app is now integrated with the OpenAI technology powering ChatGPT. Once an Ink Cards user has selected an occasion and card design, a choice can be made to either write text from scratch or use the app’s new AI feature, called MagicMessage™. MagicMessage solicits basic guidance from the user, such as the card recipient’s name and occasion, and optional details, like information about the user’s relationship with the recipient or the recipient’s interests.
Trained on a massive dataset of text, this best-in-class language generation system responds to the Ink Cards user’s input with personalized message suggestions, writing even the most challenging sentiments. The user then has the option to edit the resulting text.
“We are excited to offer our customers the ability to create truly personalized and heartfelt messages with the help of OpenAI,” said Todd Helfstein, president of PlanetArt. “This technology will help our customers express themselves in ways they never thought possible, and we believe it will become an essential tool for writing sentiments that make greeting cards more personal and more meaningful.”