Criteo SA (CRTO) 2018 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Criteo First Quarter 2018 Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Edouard Lassalle, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

早安，歡迎參加 Criteo 2018 年第一季電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意此事件正在被記錄。現在我想將會議交給副總裁兼投資者關係主管愛德華‧拉薩爾 (Edouard Lassalle)。請繼續。

Thank you, Nicole. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Criteo's first quarter 2018 earnings call. With us today are Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO JB Rudelle: and CFO, Benoit Fouilland. During the course of this call, management will make forward-looking statements. These may include projected financial results or operating metrics, business strategies, anticipated future products and services, anticipated investment and expansion plans, anticipated market demand or opportunities and other forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results and the timing of certain events may differ materially from the results or timing predicted or implied by such forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein, except as required by law.

謝謝你，妮可。大家早安，歡迎參加 Criteo 2018 年第一季財報電話會議。今天與我們在一起的有聯合創始人、董事長兼首席執行官 JB Rudelle：以及首席財務官 Benoit Fouilland。在本次電話會議期間，管理階層將做出前瞻性聲明。這些可能包括預期的財務表現或營運指標、業務策略、預期的未來產品和服務、預期的投資和擴張計劃、預期的市場需求或機會以及其他前瞻性陳述。此類陳述受到各種風險、不確定性和假設的影響。某些事件的實際結果和時間可能與此類前瞻性陳述預測或暗示的結果或時間有重大差異。除法律要求外，我們不承擔更新本文所含任何前瞻性聲明的義務。

In addition, reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Also, we will discuss non-GAAP measures of our performance. Definitions of such metrics and the reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures were provided in the earnings release published earlier today.

此外，報告的結果不應被視為未來績效的指標。此外，我們也將討論非公認會計準則的績效衡量標準。今天稍早發布的收益報告中提供了此類指標的定義以及與最直接可比較的 GAAP 財務指標的調整。

Finally, unless otherwise stated, all growth comparisons made in the course of this call are against the same period in the prior year.

最後，除非另有說明，本次電話會議中進行的所有成長比較均與去年同期進行。

With that, I will now turn the call over to JB Rudelle, CEO of Criteo. JB?

現在，我將把電話轉給 Criteo 執行長 JB Rudelle。傑布？

Thank you, Ed, and good morning, everyone. I am glad to be here after having been away from the day-to-day operations of the business for more than 2 years. As you know, the Board of Directors have asked me to lead again the company, I love, as CEO. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Eric Eichmann for his great commitment and contribution in growing our business over the last years. Eric will assist me in this transition as my special advisor. Given the many changes that are happening in the industry, there is a lot that needs to be done to prepare Criteo for its next chapter of growth. I must say, I am super excited with this challenge. This said, I also recognize that we have not always done a good job in the past explaining why we strongly believe Criteo has so much potential to create value for shareholders. And with Benoit, Edouard, and the rest of the team, our task would be to regain the trust of our investors and convince them of our ability to reaccelerate our growth in the coming years. This said, I'd like to stress the fact that Criteo is today in a healthy state. Despite the significant headwinds we are facing with respect to user coverage, I am happy to report a pretty solid first quarter, delivering positive growth, while significantly expanding our profitability and cash flow. At constant currency, we grew our revenue ex TAC 8% and adjusted EBITDA 22%. I believe those better-than-expected results somehow illustrate the resilience of our business when dealing with external shocks.

謝謝你，艾德，大家早安。我很高興在離開公司的日常營運兩年多後來到這裡。如您所知，董事會要求我再次領導這家我熱愛的公司，擔任執行長。我想藉此機會感謝艾希曼 (Eric Eichmann) 在過去幾年中為發展我們的業務做出的巨大承諾和貢獻。艾瑞克將作為我的特別顧問協助我完成這項過渡。鑑於該行業正在發生的許多變化，要為 Criteo 的下一個成長篇章做好準備，還有很多工作要做。我必須說，我對這個挑戰感到非常興奮。儘管如此，我也意識到，我們過去並不總是能很好地解釋為什麼我們堅信 Criteo 具有為股東創造價值的巨大潛力。與伯努瓦、愛德華和團隊其他成員一起，我們的任務是重新贏得投資者的信任，並讓他們相信我們有能力在未來幾年重新加速成長。儘管如此，我想強調一個事實，即 Criteo 目前處於健康狀態。儘管我們在用戶覆蓋方面面臨著巨大的阻力，但我很高興地報告第一季的表現相當穩健，實現了正增長，同時顯著擴大了我們的盈利能力和現金流。以固定匯率計算，我們的 TAC 營收成長了 8%，調整後的 EBITDA 成長了 22%。我相信這些好於預期的結果在某種程度上說明了我們的業務在應對外部衝擊時的彈性。

Looking at our results by region. In the Americas, we grew revenue ex TAC 3% at constant currency, with the U.S. market growing at 7%, driven by our dynamic business with large clients, particularly those that we added in 2017. Offsetting this, difficult market condition in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, continued to negatively impact the region. Revenue ex TAC in EMEA grew 11% at constant currency, largely driven by solid performance in Germany, Middle East and Africa.

按地區查看我們的結果。在美洲，我們的營收（不包括TAC）以固定匯率計算成長了3%，其中美國市場成長了7%，這得益於我們與大客戶（特別是我們在2017 年新增的客戶）的動態業務。抵消了拉丁美洲困難的市場狀況，特別是在巴西，繼續對該地區產生負面影響。以固定匯率計算，歐洲、中東和非洲 (EMEA) 的 TAC 收入成長了 11%，這主要得益於德國、中東和非洲的穩健表現。

In APAC, increased revenue [ex-TAC] (corrected by company after the call) was 10% at constant currency, driven by healthy growth across large and mid-market clients in Japan. Built on our unique data collectives and technology assets, our suite of products is well received by our clients and partners all around the globe. We drove stable growth in same-client revenue ex TAC, despite, as you know, some user coverage limitations, reflecting, I think, the strength of our underlying business.

在亞太地區，受日本大中型市場客戶健康成長的推動，以固定匯率計算，營收 [ex-TAC]（由公司在電話會議後修正）成長了 10%。我們的產品套件建立在我們獨特的數據集合和技術資產的基礎上，受到全球客戶和合作夥伴的好評。儘管如您所知，我們推動了除 TAC 之外的同客戶收入的穩定成長，但我認為，這反映了我們基礎業務的實力。

One key driver of the business is our Criteo Shopper Graph, which includes our proprietary Identity Graph, our Interest Map, and our Measurement Network. With all 3 data collectives, we have made meaningful progress during the quarter, increasing the scale and efficiency, and I'd like to provide some more details on this.

這項業務的關鍵驅動力之一是我們的 Criteo 購物者圖譜，其中包括我們專有的身份圖譜、興趣圖譜和測量網絡。透過所有 3 個資料集合，我們在本季度取得了有意義的進展，提高了規模和效率，我想提供有關這方面的更多詳細資訊。

First, let's speak about our Identity Graph. This graph creates a unique and anonymized identifier across devices, browsers, apps and offline world. With about 1.4 billion individual users worldwide in the graph, we already operate one of the largest user graphs in the industry. This massive scale allows us to offer our clients a comprehensive coverage of consumers globally. We are also making promising progress in developing technologies to improve our user coverage in all other environments. This is a key area for us, and we believe a source of long-term sustainable competitive advantage. And as a result, there is a significant area of focus in allocating our R&D resources.

首先，讓我們來談談我們的身分圖譜。該圖在裝置、瀏覽器、應用程式和離線世界中創建了一個唯一的匿名識別碼。圖表中全球約有 14 億個個人用戶，我們已經經營著業界最大的用戶圖表之一。如此龐大的規模使我們能夠為客戶提供全面覆蓋全球消費者的服務。我們在開發技術以提高所有其他環境中的使用者覆蓋範圍方面也取得了可喜的進展。這是我們的一個關鍵領域，我們相信這是長期可持續競爭優勢的來源。因此，我們的研發資源分配是一個重要的重點領域。

Secondly, our Interest Map. So Interest Map organizes anonymous shopping intent and purchasing data across participating retailers. Based on making highly relevant product recommendations, our technology focuses on maximizing the likelihood to create consumer engagement. We do this through anonymized IDs. By the way, I'd like to remind that as opposed to some other players, we do not collect, store or process sensitive personal data, such as age, gender, political views or friends. Clients who give us permission to process shopping data on an aggregated basis within our Interest Map, already represent nearly half of our revenue ex TAC.

其次，我們的興趣地圖。因此，興趣地圖組織了參與零售商的匿名購物意圖和購買數據。基於提供高度相關的產品推薦，我們的技術專注於最大限度地提高消費者參與度。我們透過匿名 ID 來做到這一點。順便說一句，我想提醒一下，與其他一些玩家不同，我們不會收集、儲存或處理敏感的個人數據，例如年齡、性別、政治觀點或朋友。允許我們在興趣地圖中匯總處理購物資料的客戶，已經占我們除 TAC 之外的收入的近一半。

Thirdly, our Measurement Network. This allows brands to measure sales across retailer sites and this continues to grow as we expand our retailer network. This permission-based sales attribution is typically not available to brands in the offline world, and we believe differentiates our offer from traditional solutions. Overall, building and deploying new capabilities based on our Shopper Graph is really core to our vision.

第三，我們的測量網。這使得品牌能夠衡量各個零售商網站的銷售額，並且隨著我們擴大零售商網絡，這一數字將繼續增長。這種基於授權的銷售歸因通常不適用於線下世界的品牌，我們相信我們的產品與傳統解決方案有所不同。總的來說，基於我們的購物者圖譜建立和部署新功能確實是我們願景的核心。

In mobile now, I am pleased to report that new improvements in bidding and increased flexibility with ad design and layout allow us to grow our app revenue ex TAC by over 60%. Overall, we believe there is a lot more growth potential to unlock down the road for value-added advertisement in this app environment. As a result, this is one of the key areas, where we plan to invest in the future, and I'll come back to that. This in-app inventory is growing very quickly, and we want to be in the best possible position to take advantage of this exciting trend.

現在，在行動領域，我很高興地向大家報告，出價方面的新改進以及廣告設計和佈局靈活性的提高使我們的應用收入 (TAC) 增長了 60% 以上。總的來說，我們相信在這個應用程式環境中，增值廣告還有更大的成長潛力。因此，這是我們計劃未來投資的關鍵領域之一，我將回到這一點。這種應用內庫存成長非常迅速，我們希望處於最佳位置，以利用這一令人興奮的趨勢。

Regarding Criteo Sponsored Products, we are making nice progress in signing more brands and more retailers onto our marketplace. As you might recall, the foundation of this Sponsored Product was the acquisition 18 months ago of HookLogic. This business is now a growing part of our overall revenue mix, and this diversification is an important component for the long-term sustainability of our business. Furthermore, I'd like to say that the success of this integration is encouraging us to pursue a strategy to complement our organic growth with acquisition of high-quality assets that would expand our business into exciting new markets.

關於 Criteo 贊助產品，我們在與更多品牌和零售商簽約到我們的市場方面取得了良好進展。您可能還記得，此贊助產品的基礎是 18 個月前對 HookLogic 的收購。該業務現已成為我們整體收入組合中不斷增長的一部分，這種多元化是我們業務長期可持續發展的重要組成部分。此外，我想說，這次整合的成功鼓勵我們採取策略，透過收購優質資產來補充我們的有機成長，從而將我們的業務擴展到令人興奮的新市場。

In parallel, we are pleased with the results of our beta products, named Customer Acquisition and Audience Match. Audience Match helps our clients to reengage with the existing client -- customers typically through uploading customer contact lists. Thanks to our, as we said, very powerful Identity Graph, we are proud to offer one of the best match rates in the market that allow our clients to reconnect online with their customers. I believe these best-in-class match rates will be key to generate good client adoption in the future. Second beta product, Customer Acquisition, leverage our Interest Map to head our clients acquire entirely new customers. This -- as you know, this is a huge market, and we're getting significant interest from our clients to expand their customer footprints. This beta program is now alive in 10 countries, and we are planning to expand it in more countries in the coming quarters. Overall, those 2 new beta products, though they still deliver robust revenues compared to the rest of the business, the first results continue to be encouraging.

同時，我們對名為「客戶獲取」和「受眾匹配」的測試版產品的結果感到滿意。 Audience Match 可協助我們的客戶重新與現有客戶（通常透過上傳客戶聯絡人清單的客戶）互動。正如我們所說，由於我們非常強大的身份圖譜，我們很自豪能夠提供市場上最好的匹配率之一，使我們的客戶能夠與他們的客戶重新在線聯繫。我相信這些一流的匹配率將是未來獲得良好客戶採用的關鍵。第二個測試版產品「客戶獲取」利用我們的興趣地圖引導我們的客戶獲取全新客戶。如您所知，這是一個巨大的市場，我們的客戶對擴大他們的客戶足跡表現出了濃厚的興趣。該測試計劃現已在 10 個國家/地區啟動，我們計劃在未來幾季將其擴展到更多國家。總體而言，這兩款新的測試版產品儘管與其他業務相比仍然帶來了強勁的收入，但最初的結果仍然令人鼓舞。

Now moving on to the supply side. The Criteo Direct Bidder, our proprietary header-bidding technology, continues its rapid adoption. With less than 1 year in market, our direct bidder is now already deployed with over more than 2,000 premium publishers worldwide. In parallel, we are developing a direct bidder solution for mobile apps and are encouraged by its earlier results. And as I mentioned earlier, accelerating our growth in app is one of our key priorities.

現在轉向供給面。我們專有的標頭競價技術 Criteo Direct Bidder 持續快速採用。進入市場不到 1 年，我們的直接競標者現已與全球 2,000 多家優質出版商合作。同時，我們正在為行動應用程式開發直接投標解決方案，並對其早期結果感到鼓舞。正如我之前提到的，加速應用程式的成長是我們的首要任務之一。

Moving now to the client side. We closed the quarter with over 18,500 clients, while maintaining client retention rate -- client retention at close to 90% across all our products. This is an increase of 410 net clients, a lower level than in prior quarters. As previously announced, we are implementing specific plans to optimize our go-to-market strategy. We are focusing now more on large mid-market clients, and developing a fully scalable self-service platform to manage smaller mid-market clients in a more efficient way. As we manage this transition, we expect our net new client additions to remain at fairly similar level through this year, 2018. However, with further -- future rollout of our self-service platform that will be targeting smaller clients, we hope to see a reacceleration of new client addition in the course of next year.

現在轉向客戶端。本季結束時，我們擁有超過 18,500 名客戶，同時保持了客戶保留率——我們所有產品的客戶保留率接近 90%。淨客戶增加 410 名，低於前幾季的水平。正如先前所宣布的，我們正在實施具體計劃來優化我們的上市策略。我們現在更專注於大型中型市場客戶，並開發一個完全可擴展的自助服務平台，以更有效的方式管理小型中型市場客戶。在我們管理這項轉變的過程中，我們預計到2018 年，我們的新客戶淨增量將保持在相當相似的水平。然而，隨著未來進一步推出針對較小客戶的自助服務平台，我們希望看到明年將重新加速新客戶的增加。

Before closing, let me say a few words about data privacy. As a matter of fact, where we are really focused, when it comes to privacy, is consent management. I am fully aware that the upcoming GDPR is generating a lot of questions and concern in the industry. As a European company, I believe we are likely in a better position than some of our U.S. counterparts to embrace this new regulation. Consent management is indeed something we have built a strong expertise in. I remember back in 2009, we were one of the first companies in the world to impose to all of our clients to manage consensus related to data collection and data usage by offering end user an opt-out link directly embedded into every banner. At that time, I remember many people have thought we were crazy to do this and this would badly damage our business. Today, I am very proud to see that this feature has become a market standard because without consumer trust, there is no sustainable business. In other words, giving more choices and control to the consumer is a major, massive historical trend. And we believe it's better to embrace this trend than to resist it. Specifically, we work very closely with the CNIL, the French Data Protection Authority, we rely on, and the CNIL is one of the most thoughtful and influential data protection agencies in the world. We are totally aligned with the CNIL on how to implement GDPR guidelines for consent management.

在結束之前，讓我談談資料隱私。事實上，當涉及隱私時，我們真正關注的是同意管理。我充分意識到即將推出的 GDPR 正在業界引起許多問題和擔憂。作為一家歐洲公司，我相信我們可能比一些美國同行更能接受這項新規定。同意管理確實是我們建立了強大的專業知識的領域。我記得早在2009 年，我們是世界上第一家向所有客戶強制要求通過向最終用戶提供管理與數據收集和數據使用相關的共識的公司之一直接嵌入每個橫幅中的選擇退出連結。當時，我記得很多人都認為我們這樣做是瘋狂的，這會嚴重損害我們的業務。今天，我非常自豪地看到這項功能已成為市場標準，因為沒有消費者的信任，就沒有永續的業務。換句話說，給消費者更多的選擇和控制權是一個重大的、巨大的歷史趨勢。我們相信擁抱這一趨勢比抵制它更好。具體來說，我們與我們所依賴的法國資料保護機構 CNIL 密切合作，CNIL 是世界上最有思想、最有影響力的資料保護機構之一。關於如何實施 GDPR 同意管理指南，我們與 CNIL 完全一致。

This said, other players in the ecosystem, in particular on the supply side, appear not to have yet solid plans in this field. As a result, they may decide to apply processes to manage user consent that could create friction for all stakeholders in the ecosystem, including end users. This transitory situation might not only create friction, but also some interesting potential opportunities for us to leverage our consent management expertise to help our partners.

儘管如此，生態系統中的其他參與者，特別是供應方面的參與者，似乎尚未在該領域制定可靠的計劃。因此，他們可能決定應用流程來管理使用者同意，這可能會對生態系統中的所有利害關係人（包括最終使用者）帶來摩擦。這種暫時的情況不僅可能會產生摩擦，還會為我們提供一些有趣的潛在機會，讓我們利用我們的同意管理專業知識來幫助我們的合作夥伴。

Looking now for the full year 2018. We have 3 key priorities. First, to continue to invest in the Criteo Shopper Graph to reinforce our leadership position in this area, with a particular focus on user coverage and consent management.

現在展望 2018 年全年。我們有 3 個關鍵優先事項。首先，繼續投資 Criteo Shopper Graph，以鞏固我們在該領域的領導地位，特別關注用戶覆蓋範圍和同意管理。

Second, we're going to bring more brands and retailer onto our Sponsored Product marketplace.

其次，我們將把更多的品牌和零售商引入我們的商品推廣市場。

And third, as I said, we want to expand our footprint in the fast-growing mobile in-app market.

第三，正如我所說，我們希望擴大我們在快速成長的行動應用程式內市場的足跡。

So in closing, I am pleased with the friction and our results in the first quarter. And I think this track quite well with our upcoming priorities for the year.

最後，我對第一季的摩擦和結果感到滿意。我認為這條路線非常適合我們今年即將到來的優先事項。

With this, Benoit will take now through the financial results and guidance further in detail.

就此，伯努瓦現在將進一步詳細介紹財務表現和指導。

Thank you, JB, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to see that we are off to a good start in 2018. We delivered another quarter of growth, increased profitability and strong cash flow, while investing for the future. I will walk you through our Q1 performance and share our guidance for Q2 and 2018.

謝謝你，JB，大家早安。我很高興看到我們在 2018 年有了一個良好的開端。我們在投資未來的同時，又實現了一個季度的成長、獲利能力的提高和強勁的現金流。我將向您介紹我們第一季的表現，並分享我們對第二季和 2018 年的指導。

Revenue was $564 million. Revenue ex TAC, our key metric to monitor performance, grew 8% at constant currency, driven by new clients across region and sizes as well as expanding business with existing clients across our various solutions. Revenue ex TAC margin improved 200 basis points to 42.6%, largely driven by changes introduced by key supply partners in mobile apps that positively impact how we get charged for inventory. We are working to have our engine adapt to these changes, and as a result, anticipate that our revenue ex-TAC margin will normalize to prior levels over time. Compared with Q1 2017, changes in ForEx driven by the rising euro represented a tailwind of about 680 basis points to revenue ex-TAC growth, a slightly higher impact than anticipated.

收入為 5.64 億美元。在跨地區和規模的新客戶以及透過各種解決方案與現有客戶擴展業務的推動下，我們監控績效的關鍵指標（除 TAC 外的收入）按固定匯率計算增長了 8%。除去 TAC 的收入利潤率提高了 200 個基點，達到 42.6%，這主要是由於行動應用程式中的主要供應合作夥伴引入的變化對我們的庫存收費方式產生了積極影響。我們正在努力讓我們的引擎適應這些變化，因此，預計我們的除 TAC 利潤率將隨著時間的推移正常化到先前的水平。與 2017 年第一季相比，歐元升值推動的外匯變動對扣除 TAC 的營收成長產生約 680 個基點的推動力，影響略高於預期。

Switching to expenses. The increase in other cost of revenue was mostly driven by a higher number of servers to increase our hosting on computing capacity worldwide. Operating expenses grew 9%, largely driven by a 4% increase in headcount. We ended the quarter with close to 2,700 employees, and 3 drivers explain the slower headcount growth. First, the sale of the travel activity of HookLogic in January 2018 combined with the restructuring of Criteo Predictive Search accounted for a reduction of about 50 employees. Second, the transformation of our go-to-market model comes with a reshuffling of resources. Third, we had some hiring delays, in particular, in the mid-market. Headcount-related expenses represented 77% of GAAP OpEx. Our non-GAAP operating expenses grew 7% to $148 million.

轉向支出。其他收入成本的增加主要是由於伺服器數量增加，以提高我們在全球範圍內的託管運算能力。營運費用增加 9%，主要是因為員工人數增加 4%。本季末，我們擁有近 2,700 名員工，3 名司機解釋了員工人數成長放緩的原因。首先，2018年1月出售HookLogic的旅遊業務，加上Criteo Predictive Search的重組，導致約50名員工減少。第二，市場模式的轉變伴隨著資源的重新洗牌。第三，我們的招募出現了一些延遲，特別是在中端市場。與員工人數相關的費用佔 GAAP 營運支出的 77%。我們的非 GAAP 營運支出成長 7%，達到 1.48 億美元。

On a non-GAAP basis by function, R&D expenses grew 19% in line with investment plans and largely driven by the 12% increase in headcount to over 670 employees in R&D and Product.

按非 GAAP 職能劃分，研發費用增加了 19%，與投資計畫一致，主要是由於研發和產品部門的員工人數增加了 12%，達到 670 多名員工。

Sales and operation OpEx grew 5% slightly below our plans. This was partly driven by a 1% decrease in employee headcount to over 1,500, including 700 quota-carrying employees after the sale of the HookLogic travel business and the restructuring of Search.

銷售和營運營運支出成長 5%，略低於我們的計劃。部分原因是，在出售 HookLogic 旅遊業務和重組 Search 後，員工人數減少了 1%，至 1,500 多人，其中包括 700 名配額員工。

On G&A expenses, we are flat despite the 8% increase in headcount to 470 employees. Excluding a gain from the disposal of the HookLogic travel business of approximately $1 million, G&A expenses grew 4%. While the trend in expense growth continues to demonstrate our targeted investment and effective expense management, we did incur about $4 million of temporary savings compared to expectations, the majority of which relate to delayed employee hiring.

在一般管理費用方面，儘管員工人數增加了 8%，達到 470 名，但我們的支出持平。不包括出售 HookLogic 旅遊業務帶來的約 100 萬美元收益，一般管理費用增加了 4%。雖然費用成長趨勢繼續證明我們有針對性的投資和有效的費用管理，但與預期相比，我們確實節省了約 400 萬美元的臨時節省，其中大部分與延遲員工招聘有關。

Moving to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA of $78 million, up 22% at constant currency, was driven by revenue ex-TAC growth as well as gain from disposal and temporary savings. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 550 basis points to 32% of revenue ex-TAC. After excluding the gains from disposal and temporary savings, our adjusted EBITDA margin still improved about 350 basis point to 30%, highlighting our scalability and remaining well on track with our long-term operating model.

轉向盈利。調整後 EBITDA 為 7,800 萬美元，按固定匯率計算增長 22%，這是由扣除 TAC 的收入增長以及處置和臨時儲蓄收益推動的。調整後 EBITDA 利潤率提高了 550 個基點，佔不計 TAC 收入的 32%。在排除處置和臨時節省帶來的收益後，我們調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率仍提高了約 350 個基點，達到 30%，凸顯了我們的可擴展性並保持了我們長期營運模式的良好發展。

Equity awards compensation expense increased 29%. Excluding the onetime equity grant in connection with the HookLogic acquisition, equity awards represented about 7% of revenue ex-TAC.

股權獎勵補償費用增加 29%。不包括與 HookLogic 收購相關的一次性股權授予，股權獎勵約佔不計 TAC 收入的 7%。

Depreciation and amortization expense increased 17% or 24% after excluding the amortization of intangible relating to the purchase price accounting of HookLogic.

扣除與 HookLogic 購買價格核算相關的無形資產攤銷後，折舊和攤提費用增加了 17% 或 24%。

Financial expense decreased 43% as a result of lower ForEx hedging cost. Since the end of January 2018, we have accounted for $265 million intragroup loan to Criteo Corp as a net investment in a foreign operation, while recording ForEx revaluation in Criteo S.A.'s balance sheet are no longer hedging the ForEx exposure. The reported effective tax rate after discrete items was 37%, in line with our projected income tax rate for fiscal year 2018 of 37% before discrete items. As a matter of fact, discrete items were not significant in the quarter as few stock options were exercised in the quarter.

由於外匯對沖成本降低，財務費用下降 43%。自 2018 年 1 月底以來，我們已將向 Criteo Corp 提供的 2.65 億美元集團內貸款計入海外業務的淨投資，同時在 Criteo S.A. 的資產負債表中記錄外匯重估，不再對沖外匯風險。報告的扣除離散項目後的有效稅率為 37%，與我們預計 2018 財年扣除離散項目前的所得稅率為 37% 一致。事實上，由於本季行使的股票選擇權很少，因此本季的離散項目並不重要。

Net income increased 45% to $21 million. And adjusted net income per diluted share increased 30% to $0.60. Cash flow from operations grew 91%, driven by strong operating growth and profitability as well as positive changes in working capital. A large part of this positive working capital contribution, approximately $23 million, was due to the favorable timing of some account payables to large publisher around Easter time. Transformation of adjusted EBITDA into cash flow from operations was 108%, above expectation on historical patterns, or 79% after excluding the exceptional positive change in working capital.

淨利潤成長 45%，達到 2,100 萬美元。調整後每股攤薄淨利成長 30%，達到 0.60 美元。在強勁的營運成長和獲利能力以及營運資本的積極變化的推動下，營運現金流成長了 91%。這項積極的營運資金貢獻（約 2300 萬美元）的很大一部分是由於復活節前後向大型出版商支付的一些應付帳款的有利時機。調整後 EBITDA 轉化為營運現金流量的比率為 108%，高於歷史模式的預期，排除營運資本的異常正向變化後為 79%。

CapEx increased 15% as we invested in additional servers and made leasehold improvement in some offices. As a result, free cash flow more than tripled to $52 million, representing a 67% conversion ratio from adjusted EBITDA. Even after excluding the exceptional change in working capital, free cash flow still increased 80%.

由於我們投資了更多伺服器並改善了一些辦公室的租賃權益，資本支出增加了 15%。結果，自由現金流增加了兩倍多，達到 5,200 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 的轉換率為 67%。即使排除營運資金的異常變化，自由現金流仍增加了 80%。

Finally, cash and cash equivalents increased $70 million to $484 million.

最後，現金和現金等價物增加了 7,000 萬美元，達到 4.84 億美元。

I will now provide our guidance for the second quarter and 2018. The following forward-looking statements reflect our expectation, as of today, May 2, 2018. We expect Q2 2018 revenue ex-TAC to be between $226 million and $230 million. This implies constant currency growth of minus 1% to plus 1%, And assumes that year-over-year Forex changes will positively impact reported growth by about 400 basis points. And we expect Q2 2018 adjusted EBITDA to be between $53 million and $57 million. I want to point out that from a business seasonality standpoint, Q2 is typically the lowest quarter of the year for our overall business.

我現在將提供我們對第二季和2018 年的指導。以下前瞻性陳述反映了我們截至今天（2018 年5 月2 日）的預期。我們預計2018 年第二季（不計TAC）收入將在2.26億美元至2.3 億美元之間。這意味著貨幣成長率恆定為負 1% 至正 1%，並假設同比外匯變化將對報告的成長產生約 400 個基點的正面影響。我們預計 2018 年第二季調整後 EBITDA 將在 5,300 萬美元至 5,700 萬美元之間。我想指出，從業務季節性的角度來看，第二季通常是我們整體業務一年中最低的季度。

In addition, we have taken some level of cautiousness, given the various changes happening in the industry. For 2018, we maintain our expectation of a revenue ex-TAC growth of between 3% and 8% at constant currency. We assume that ForEx changes will have a positive impact of about both 350 basis points on our reported growth for 2018. And we also maintain our expectation for adjusted EBITDA margin in 2018 to be between 28% and 30% of revenue ex-TAC. As usual, the ForEx assumption underlying our guidance for the second quarter and 2018 are included in the earnings release that we published earlier today.

此外，考慮到行業中發生的各種變化，我們採取了一定程度的謹慎態度。對於 2018 年，我們維持以固定匯率計算的不計 TAC 收入成長 3% 至 8% 的預期。我們假設外匯變化將對我們報告的 2018 年成長產生約 350 個基點的正面影響。我們還維持 2018 年調整後 EBITDA 利潤率在扣除 TAC 收入的 28% 至 30% 之間的預期。像往常一樣，我們對第二季和 2018 年指導的外匯假設包含在我們今天早些時候發布的收益報告中。

In closing, I am pleased with our strong Q1 performance. These results delivering sustained growth, increased profitability and strong cash flow once again highlight the strengths and scalability of our model.

最後，我對我們第一季的強勁表現感到滿意。這些成果帶來了持續成長、獲利能力提高和強勁的現金流，再次凸顯了我們模型的優勢和可擴展性。

So with that, I will now take your questions.

那麼，我現在將回答你們的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Matthew Thornton of SunTrust.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 SunTrust 的 Matthew Thornton。

JB, welcome back. Your opening comments there were helpful. Maybe one question for JB, and one for Benoit. JB, I mean, obviously, the board is actually kind of come back in here. Can you bring it full-circle and maybe give 2 or 3 bullets on what you're charged with accomplishing and how the strategy might change under your direction kind of moving forward, including your view of GDPR versus your predecessor? So maybe just a couple of bullets to kind of bring that all full-circle would be helpful. And then Benoit, just couple of housekeeping items. Take rate was up a little bit, it seems to have a modest upward trajectory. I guess, is that sustainable and kind of what's driving that? And then also the same client sales. I apologize, if I missed this, but last quarter you talked about same client sales ex ITP. Just wondering if you had an update on that number for the quarter?

JB，歡迎回來。你的開場白很有幫助。也許向 JB 提出一個問題，向 Benoit 提出一個問題。 JB，我的意思是，顯然，董事會實際上又回到了這裡。您能否完整地闡述您所負責完成的任務，以及在您的前進方向下策略可能會如何變化，包括您對 GDPR 與前任的看法？因此，也許只需幾顆子彈就能完成整個循環就會有所幫助。然後是伯努瓦，只是一些家務用品。採取率略有上升，似乎有溫和的上升軌跡。我想，這是可持續的，也是推動這趨勢的原因嗎？然後也是相同的客戶銷售。如果我錯過了這一點，我深表歉意，但上個季度您談到了相同的客戶銷售（除 ITP）。只是想知道您是否有本季該數字的更新？

Thank you very much. So just to give you a bit more color on my -- kind of -- my return. I guess you are an entrepreneur and my mindset is to try to look at challenges into opportunities. And that's probably what the board was seeking from me, to try to look at things from different angle and to seize more of the opportunities. Whenever it's implied to GDPR or other things, people can see this, as you know, challenge, concern, depressing things, or it could be seen as -- you know Europe is at the forefront of a new way to interact with consumers, and we need to embrace this and educate the market. So when it comes to strategy, my plan is not to change the strategy for the sake of changing it. I want to do what's best for the company. But more specifically, I want to make sure that when we see an opportunity, we move quickly on it. And sometime in the past, we have been probably a bit too slow in term of assessing and going after new opportunities, and it's going to be one of my focus in the future to put the organization into the right mindset to move faster on new opportunities.

非常感謝。所以只是為了讓你們對我的——有點——我的回歸有更多的了解。我猜你是個企業家，我的心態是試著將挑戰視為機會。這可能是董事會對我的要求，試著從不同的角度看待事物並抓住更多機會。每當它暗示到GDPR 或其他事情時，人們都可以看到這一點，如你所知，挑戰、擔憂、令人沮喪的事情，或者它可以被視為——你知道歐洲處於與消費者互動的新方式的前沿，並且我們需要接受這一點並對市場進行教育。因此，在戰略方面，我的計劃不是為了改變戰略而改變戰略。我想做對公司最有利的事。但更具體地說，我想確保當我們看到機會時，我們會迅速採取行動。過去的某個時候，我們在評估和尋找新機會方面可能有點太慢了，我未來的重點之一是讓組織建立正確的心態，以便更快地抓住新機會。

Okay. So with respect to your question. First on the take rate, so you're right, I mean, rev ex-TAC margin was higher in the quarter. It likely improved 200 basis point year-over-year and 150 basis point compared to prior quarter. So this is largely driven by changes that were introduced by key supply partners in mobile apps that ultimately positively impact how we get charged more for inventory. So we are working on to have our engine to adapt to these changes. So you should not assume that we will stay at those levels, and I think over time, we should see the margin normalizing to, I would say, historical level around closer to 41% that we've seen in recent quarters. With respect to the same client revenue ex-TAC growth, we had -- in fact, we maintained the same client rev ex-TAC, despite the users coverage limitation. Now this is in line pretty much with our expectations. So now, the impact of user coverage is embedded into our figures and it would be increasingly meaningless to try to recompute these numbers without this.

好的。所以關於你的問題。首先是收取率，所以你是對的，我的意思是，本季的 TAC 利潤率更高。它可能比去年同期提高 200 個基點，與上一季相比提高 150 個基點。因此，這很大程度上是由主要供應合作夥伴在行動應用程式中引入的變化所推動的，這些變化最終對我們收取更多庫存費用的方式產生了積極影響。因此，我們正在努力讓我們的引擎適應這些變化。所以你不應該假設我們會保持在這些水平，我認為隨著時間的推移，我們應該看到利潤率正常化到接近歷史水平，接近我們最近幾季看到的 41%。事實上，儘管用戶覆蓋範圍有限，但除 TAC 之外的客戶收入成長相同，我們保持了相同的客戶收入（除 TAC 之外）。現在這與我們的預期非常一致。因此，現在，用戶覆蓋率的影響已嵌入到我們的數據中，如果沒有這一點，嘗試重新計算這些數字將變得越來越沒有意義。

Our next question comes from Andy Hargreaves of KeyBanc.

我們的下一個問題來自 KeyBanc 的 Andy Hargreaves。

I just wanted to ask a couple around sort of the client acquisition strategy that you guys are implementing. I wonder if you could just say a little bit more specifically about what is causing the slowdown in retailer growth during that transition, and what sparked the change in approach? And then secondly, on ePrivacy, I wonder if you could just give us any update on where that drafting process stands, and what your guys expectations are there?

我只是想詢問一些關於你們正在實施的客戶獲取策略的問題。我想知道您是否可以更具體地說明是什麼導致了轉型期間零售商成長放緩，以及是什麼引發了方法的改變？其次，關於電子隱私，我想知道您是否可以向我們提供有關起草過程的最新情況，以及您們的期望是什麼？

So maybe just quickly to remind what is our go-to-market strategy and transformation there. So it's a key priority for 2018 for us, and we have already 3 subjects -- 3 objectives around this transformation. We want to maximize our commercial opportunity globally, we want to become more strategic to large clients, and to be more efficient and profitable in the mid-market. So these are the objectives behind this strategy. And the strategy is implemented -- is going to be implemented across the entire year. During the period of the transition, in the mid-market, in particular, and that we have already highlighted during the last quarter, we are focusing on larger mid-market clients until we will have developed a fully scalable self-service platform. And that's the reason why during this transition phase you would see a lower number of net add of -- in the mid-market until the point we are able to have a fully scalable self-service solution, which should come by the end of the year, and we should then see a rebound in our number of net add driven by the high volume of the mid-market.

因此，也許只是快速提醒一下我們的市場進入策略和轉型是什麼。因此，這是我們 2018 年的首要任務，我們已經圍繞著這項轉型製定了 3 個主題——3 個目標。我們希望在全球範圍內最大化我們的商業機會，我們希望對大客戶更具戰略意義，並在中端市場提高效率和利潤。這些就是該戰略背後的目標。該戰略已經實施——將在全年實施。在過渡期間，特別是在中端市場，我們在上個季度已經強調過，我們將重點放在較大的中端市場客戶，直到我們開發出完全可擴展的自助服務平台。這就是為什麼在這個過渡階段，您會看到中端市場的淨增加數量較少，直到我們能夠擁有完全可擴展的自助服務解決方案，這應該在 2020 年底到來。今年，我們應該會看到在在中端市場的高成交量的推動下，我們的淨增加數量出現反彈。

So when it comes to ePrivacy regulation, as you know, this is still in discussion. So there are lot of moving pieces in this. So we are promoting our view point about how to translate this into something, which is as user-friendly as possible, because at the end of the day, I think everyone wants the same thing, the consent management to be transparent and easy to understand for the end user, and not something bothering where you have a hard interruption all the time. So there is a particular point that we're trying to promote is the ability to do what we call universal portable consent, so this is -- we are trying to make sure this view is taking into consideration in the drafting of the agenda. The idea is to be able to -- once the consent is -- for a specific usage is given on a website to be able to use this consent on another website. And I think, this will make a very fair playing field for all players in the industry, big and small. And it's important for -- and I think it's the mindset of the European Commission to make sure that this new regulation doesn't favor too much the biggest players, that give equal chance of opportunity for players of all size. That's the right spirit. And we are confident that our view is going to be taken into consideration into this drafting.

因此，正如您所知，當談到電子隱私監管時，這仍在討論中。所以這裡面有很多動人的部分。因此，我們正在推廣我們的觀點，即如何將其轉化為盡可能用戶友好的東西，因為歸根結底，我認為每個人都希望同樣的事情，即同意管理透明且易於理解對於最終用戶來說，而不是總是遇到硬中斷的麻煩事。因此，我們正在努力促進的一個特別點是實現我們所說的普遍便攜式同意的能力，所以這就是——我們正在努力確保在起草議程時考慮到這一觀點。這個想法是，一旦獲得同意，在一個網站上給出特定用途後，就能夠在另一個網站上使用此同意。我認為，這將為該行業的所有參與者（無論大小）創造一個非常公平的競爭環境。這很重要——我認為歐盟委員會的心態是確保這項新規定不會過度偏袒最大的參與者，從而為各種規模的參與者提供平等的機會。這才是正確的精神。我們相信我們的觀點將被納入本起草過程中。

Our next question comes from Douglas Anmuth of JP Morgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的道格拉斯·安穆斯。

Welcome back JB. Just first on -- I wanted to ask you about Amazon, so they already have a large advertising business. I want to get your take on Amazon as a disruptive force among brands and retail advertisers, and how Criteo is pushing back here with Sponsored Products in the commerce marketing ecosystem? And then secondly, I think your cash balance now is approaching just under $500 billion -- $500 million, close to 30% of the market cap. Just wanted to get a sense of how you're thinking about M&A versus potentially buying back stock? And why not put an authorization in place particularly just as the company has been susceptible to some of these exogenous factors in the past?

歡迎回到 JB。首先，我想問亞馬遜，他們已經擁有龐大的廣告業務。我想了解您對亞馬遜作為品牌和零售廣告商之間的顛覆力量的看法，以及 Criteo 如何在商業行銷生態系統中透過商品推廣來反擊亞馬遜？其次，我認為你們的現金餘額現在接近 5,000 億美元——5 億美元，接近市值的 30%。只是想了解您如何看待併購與潛在回購股票？為什麼不授予授權，特別是在該公司過去很容易受到其中一些外在因素影響的情況下？

So Amazon first, and then I will address M&A. So as you know Amazon has been growing a very big business by offering brands the ability to target individual consumers, all the way down to their shopping basket, which has been the dream of brands for years. This is why this offer is so successful because brands rather than doing random air coverage, the way they have been doing for 50 years, now have the ability to precisely dialogue with consumers on a very granular level. So as a matter of fact, this exactly are plans for our Sponsor Product. So we are glad in a way that Amazon is educating the brands on those new capabilities. So basically, we are doing pretty much the same thing, but for the rest of the world, Amazon is one touch point for the brands, but thank god, it's not the monopoly. And the e-commerce world has many diversified players. And we have thousands and thousands of retailers, with very high-quality shopping engagement from consumer. And each of them independently, it would be very hard to develop an offer "Amazon style", but Criteo is exactly in the right position to -- with the core program to -- all combined to have something which is extremely attractive. So this is why we are investing and putting a lot of focus on this Sponsored Product offer and it's one of our key priorities for this year. And the success of Amazon is validating -- I see this -- that there is a lot of potential in this space. So regarding M&A and you know what the 2 things that are connected is, HookLogic, was, as you know, our biggest acquisition. And today, it's a growing part of our business. And we've been learning a lot in terms of our ability to acquire and integrate in an efficient way other businesses into ours. And as you know, we have plans to expand Criteo into new markets. So clearly, our cash in the company is a great tool for this strategy. And we definitely pursue a strategy to complement our organic growth with further acquisition, always in a disciplined way, quality assets, but it's something the success of this HookLogic integration is encouraging us to pursue.

首先是亞馬遜，然後我將討論併購。如您所知，亞馬遜一直在透過為品牌提供定位個人消費者的能力（一直到他們的購物籃）來發展一項非常大的業務，這一直是品牌多年來的夢想。這就是為什麼這項服務如此成功，因為品牌現在能夠與消費者進行非常精細的對話，而不是像 50 年來那樣隨機進行空中報道。事實上，這正是我們贊助商產品的計畫。因此，我們很高興亞馬遜在某種程度上對品牌進行了這些新功能的教育。所以基本上，我們正​​在做幾乎相同的事情，但對於世界其他地方來說，亞馬遜是品牌的一個接觸點，但謝天謝地，它不是壟斷。電子商務世界有許多多元化的參與者。我們擁有成千上萬的零售商，消費者的購物參與度非常高。他們每個人都獨立地開發出「亞馬遜風格」的產品是非常困難的，但 Criteo 恰好處於正確的位置——透過核心程序——所有這些結合在一起，形成了極具吸引力的東西。因此，這就是我們投資並專注於此贊助產品優惠的原因，也是我們今年的重點優先事項之一。亞馬遜的成功正在驗證——我認為這一點——這個領域有很大的潛力。因此，關於併購，你知道相關的兩件事是什麼，HookLogic，如你所知，是我們最大的收購。如今，它已成為我們業務中不斷成長的一部分。我們在以有效的方式收購其他業務並將其整合到我們的業務中的能力方面學到了很多東西。如您所知，我們計劃將 Criteo 擴展到新市場。顯然，我們在公司的現金是實現這項策略的一個很好的工具。我們肯定會追求一種策略，透過進一步收購來補充我們的有機成長，始終以嚴格的方式收購優質資產，但 HookLogic 整合的成功鼓勵我們追求這一目標。

Our next question comes from Sarah Simon of Berenberg.

我們的下一個問題來自貝倫貝格的莎拉·西蒙。

I just had two questions. I guess, one probably is on from what you were just saying, your comments earlier about maybe not being fast enough to react. Is that to do with developing new products organically, or to do with M&A opportunities you missed out on? And the second question is, whether you could give us any indication of how fast Criteo Sponsored Products grew during the quarter?

我只有兩個問題。我想，這可能與您剛才所說的有關，您之前的評論可能反應不夠快。這與有機開發新產品有關，還是與您錯過的併購機會有關？第二個問題是，您能否向我們透露本季 Criteo 贊助產品的成長速度？

So it's not one or the other either new product or M&A. I think it's 3 things. It's our existing business to make it much more solid and resilient, and this is all based on the -- on our Shopper Graph, and we are doing a big push there into strengthening our user coverage to make it less dependent on specific technologies, like cookies ,in particular. So I think this is a very important for the long-term sustainability of our business and there is a very big effort there to make it much more resilient and sustainable. We are, as you know, developing new products and that's probably the biggest change for Criteo in the last years, is we've been moving from being a single-product company to multi-product company and it's also the reason why we've been changing our go-to-market and our sales organization. And this put us in a much better position to be more aggressive on the M&A side, because when you're a single-product company, it's much harder to do M&A, you have to buy things that are fit completely directly into your one-product approach. Once you had the right go-to-market and organization to scale a multi-product approach, then it opens a lot of new opportunities in term of M&A.

因此，這不是新產品或併購兩者之一。我認為有三件事。我們現有的業務是讓它更加堅固和有彈性，這一切都基於我們的購物者圖表，我們正在大力推動加強我們的用戶覆蓋範圍，以減少對特定技術的依賴，例如餅乾，尤其是。因此，我認為這對於我們業務的長期可持續性非常重要，我們付出了巨大的努力來使其更具彈性和可持續性。如你所知，我們正在開發新產品，這可能是 Criteo 在過去幾年中最大的變化，我們已經從單一產品公司轉變為多產品公司，這也是我們為什麼一直在改變我們的行銷和銷售組織。這使我們在併購方面處於更有利的位置，可以更加積極進取，因為當你是一家單一產品公司時，進行併購要困難得多，你必須購買完全適合你的產品 -產品方法。一旦您擁有了正確的市場進入和組織來擴展多產品方法，那麼它就會在併購方面帶來許多新的機會。

Our next question comes from Richard Kramer of Arete Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 Arete Research 的 Richard Kramer。

First question, I think, if you could just go through a little bit more on your comments. There was a bit of slowdown in the Americas business. And I don't know how much that's more directly linked to the ITP issues and user coverage issues, you mentioned, but -- and you made some comments on Brazil. So maybe if you could go into a bit more detail on that? And then maybe the wider question, JB, if you could talk a little bit more about measurement? And there's a lot of discussion in the industry about proving incrementality of spend on retargeting or remarketing. Can you talk through where you are in your efforts to improve measurement and prove that incrementality for clients since it still seems to be a very contentious issue?

我想，第一個問題，您是否可以再詳細說明您的評論。美洲業務略有放緩。我不知道這與 ​​ITP 問題和用戶覆蓋問題有多少直接聯繫，您提到過，但是 - 您對巴西發表了一些評論。那麼您是否可以更詳細地介紹一下呢？然後也許是更廣泛的問題，JB，您是否可以多談談測量？業界有許多關於證明重定向或再行銷支出增量的討論。您能否談談您在改進衡量並為客戶證明增量方面所做的努力，因為這似乎仍然是一個非常有爭議的問題？

So maybe let's start with the Americas. So the Americas region grew 3% rev ex-TAC, but there are contrasted dynamics by market. In fact, the U.S. grew 7%, and Latin America, especially in Brazil, has been decreasing, where we've been facing some pretty difficult market condition. So in the U.S., maybe a bit more color in the U.S. We've seen continuous good traction with existing clients, while on the mid-market size the impact of the transformation or the transition into -- in the mid-market of the go-to-market transformation had an impact, which is a temporary impact on the mid-market performance.

那麼也許讓我們從美洲開始。因此，美洲地區扣除 TAC 後的營收成長了 3%，但各市場的動態卻截然不同。事實上，美國成長了 7%，而拉丁美洲，尤其是巴西，一直在下降，我們在那裡面臨相當困難的市場狀況。因此，在美國，也許在美國會有更多的色彩。我們已經看到現有客戶的持續良好吸引力，而在中端市場規模上，轉型或過渡到中端市場的影響市場轉型產生了影響，這對中端市場的表現是暫時的影響。

So speaking about measurement and specific incrementality, that's a very good question. But it's something, which is nothing new in a way that since the very beginning of Criteo, that's probably the first question I got when I was pitching clients back to in 2008 and 2009. When you explain them that there is a lot of value to reengage with their audience, the first question they ask is, is that incremental? Because it in a way goes against intuition. Intuition, you would think people will be engaging with the brands and, of course, they are going to come back, what's the matter? Why should I pay for this? So we've been running hundreds, if not thousands, of incrementality tests because this question, which is a very legitimate question, which is something at the very heart of the questions that our clients ask. As a matter of fact, we have a specific group dedicated in R&D to design the right protocols to prove incrementality. And the devil is in the details, you need to do those A/B test in a very controlled manner to be sure that you measure the right thing. So it's an area where we put a lot of expertise, and I am really glad that more and more people are aware of this. And it's a very basic of sustainable advertising, it's proving to your clients that what you do to is incremental, otherwise why would they renew the budget rate.

因此，談到衡量和具體增量，這是一個非常好的問題。但從 Criteo 成立伊始，這並不是什麼新鮮事，這可能是我在 2008 年和 2009 年向客戶推銷時遇到的第一個問題。重新與觀眾互動時，他們問的第一個問題是，這是漸進的嗎？因為它在某種程度上違背了直覺。憑直覺，你會認為人們會與這些品牌互動，當然，他們會回來，這是怎麼回事？我為什麼要為此付費？因此，我們已經運行了數百甚至數千次增量測試，因為這個問題是一個非常合理的問題，也是我們客戶提出的問題的核心。事實上，我們有一個專門的研發團隊來設計正確的協議來證明增量。細節決定成敗，您需要以非常可控的方式進行 A/B 測試，以確保測量到正確的結果。因此，我們在這個領域投入了大量專業知識，我很高興越來越多的人意識到這一點。這是永續廣告的一個非常基本的內容，它向您的客戶證明您所做的事情是增量的，否則他們為什麼會更新預算率。

Our next question comes from Charles Bedouelle of Exane.

我們的下一個問題來自 Exane 的 Charles Bedouelle。

JB, welcome back. We are glad to have you on the call. Two questions, if I may. The first one is, can you characterize maybe a little bit more the friction you were mentioning around Q2 supposed to be probably due to GDPR, but can you explain a little what it is going to look like and how long it could last? If you have any views on that? The second question is, you've explained very clearly what you think is the reasonable outcome of ePrivacy in terms of consent portability. Can you maybe explain us what are the other options discussed at the moment, so we can have, maybe, I would say, a broader range of potential outcome? And the third question is, maybe here for Benoit, clearly, the second part of year's performance, if we deduct the full year, the Q2 seems very cautious or very conservative. So is that because the friction, you mentioned, could last a bit longer? Or is it just because you are always on the conservative side of guiding?

JB，歡迎回來。我們很高興您接聽電話。如果可以的話，有兩個問題。第一個是，您能否更多地描述您在第二季度提到的摩擦可能是由於 GDPR 造成的，但您能否解釋一下它會是什麼樣子以及它會持續多長時間？對此您有什麼看法嗎？第二個問題是，您已經非常清楚地解釋了您認為電子隱私在同意可攜性方面的合理結果。您能否向我們解釋一下目前討論的其他選項是什麼，以便我們可以得到，也許，我想說，更廣泛的潛在結果？第三個問題是，也許對伯努瓦來說，顯然，今年第二部分的業績，如果我們扣除全年業績，第二季似乎非常謹慎或非常保守。那是因為你提到的摩擦可能會持續更長時間嗎？還是只是因為你總是站在保守的一邊指導？

Thank you, very good question. So specifically, on GDPR, to go a bit more specific is, there is a law coming about. And as you know, the spirit of the law, the law is about getting more control and transparency and ease of use for the consumer. What the law is not about is bothering users by making their browsing experience very poor. This said, there might be some publishers that decide that they want to implement a very interruptive, hard obtained thing, where you cannot do anything before obtaining to their consent. We believe that such approach is not user-friendly and not in the spirit of the law. And as a result, we think it's very unlikely that there's going to be -- this rigid approach will become the industry standout because this is not the intention of the legislature, and the CNIL, the French CNIL, where we've been discussing this at length plan is completely aligned with this interpretation. Now this said, we don't control how many of those publishers might decide to implement this kind of interruptive, hard opt-in. And those that would decide to do this could create some friction, friction for the end-user because it's going to damage their browsing experience, and friction for the ecosystem because it would create more difficulties in terms of connectivity across the players. So we need some more clarity on how those players are going to implement this. We are doing a big effort to promote what we think is the right way to implement the law, and in a way we think our expertise in consent management may offer us some opportunity to even reengage with some publishers we're not working with today directly. And said, that's the opportunity for us, hopefully, to implement our direct-bidder solution with those guys. And so this is interesting because, as you know, we are favoring as much as we can to go direct with publishers and removing any middleman between us and publishers, and in a way this creates an opportunity for us. So it's going to be a long battle to educate everyone on those new ways to do business. We think this is the future, and everyone should embrace consent management in the right way. Regarding ePrivacy, so this now has different aspects. I discussed one of them. Another one, which is very interesting, is what -- on what grounds publishers can allow to let a user access or not access to their work site? And the latest draft -- and once more, this is work in progress -- the latest draft, we think, goes into the right direction, which stated that access to website may be made conditional to the well-informed acceptance of a cookie, which I think is a pragmatic balanced way to do things, and respect the right of the publisher that you won't have access to my content, while you need to access value-added advertising, it goes together. So once more this is still work in progress, but we are very confident that the pragmatic approach is going to prevail at the European level.

謝謝，非常好的問題。具體來說，就 GDPR 而言，更具體地說，即將出台一項法律。如您所知，法律的精神是為消費者提供更多的控制權、透明度和易用性。該法律不是為了讓用戶的瀏覽體驗變得非常糟糕而打擾他們。這就是說，可能有一些出版商決定他們想要實施一個非常具有乾擾性的、很難獲得的東西，在獲得他們的同意之前你不能做任何事情。我們認為這種做法既不方便用戶，也不符合法律精神。因此，我們認為這種僵化的方法不太可能成為行業中的佼佼者，因為這不是立法機構和法國 CNIL 的意圖，我們一直在討論這個問題最終計劃與這種解釋完全一致。也就是說，我們無法控制有多少發布者可能決定實施這種中斷性的、硬性的選擇加入。決定這樣做的人可能會產生一些摩擦，給最終用戶帶來摩擦，因為這會損害他們的瀏覽體驗，給生態系統帶來摩擦，因為這會給玩家之間的連結帶來更多困難。因此，我們需要更清楚地了解這些參與者將如何實現這一目標。我們正在大力推廣我們認為正確的法律實施方式，在某種程度上，我們認為我們在同意管理方面的專業知識可能為我們提供一些機會，甚至可以與一些我們今天沒有直接合作的出版商重新接觸。 。並表示，這對我們來說是一個機會，希望能夠與這些人一起實施我們的直接投標解決方案。所以這很有趣，因為正如你所知，我們盡可能地傾向於直接與出版商聯繫，並消除我們和出版商之間的任何中間人，在某種程度上，這為我們創造了機會。因此，教育每個人了解這些新的經營方式將是一場漫長的戰鬥。我們認為這就是未來，每個人都應該以正確的方式接受同意管理。關於電子隱私，現在有不同的面向。我討論了其中之一。另一個非常有趣的問題是，出版商基於什麼理由可以允許使用者存取或不允許使用者存取他們的工作網站？最新的草案——再一次，這是正在進行中的工作——我們認為，最新的草案走向了正確的方向，其中規定訪問網站可能以在充分知情的情況下接受 cookie 為條件，我認為這是一種務實、平衡的做事方式，尊重出版商的權利，即你無法訪問我的內容，而你需要訪問增值廣告，這是相輔相成的。因此，這仍然是一項正在進行的工作，但我們非常有信心務實的做法將在歐洲層級盛行。

So with respect to your questions on the full year, I mean, we have not changed the way we guide the market. We feel that with all of the information that we have in hand today, and as you can see around the discussion on the potential implementation of the GDPR and the transition effect of that implementation on the supply side, in this context, we think that our guidance for the full year seems to be realistic and balanced at this point. So I would not necessarily characterize it, as you say, as conservative. There is still a lot of questions as to how some of the players are going to react in the current environment.

因此，關於您對全年的問題，我的意思是，我們沒有改變引導市場的方式。我們認為，根據我們今天掌握的所有信息，正如您所看到的關於 GDPR 的潛在實施以及該實施對供應方的過渡影響的討論，在這種背景下，我們認為我們的目前，全年指導似乎是現實且平衡的。所以我不一定像你所說的那樣將其定性為保守。關於一些參與者在當前環境下將如何反應仍然存在許多問題。

Our next question comes from Tim Nollen of Macquarie.

我們的下一個問題來自麥格理的蒂姆·諾倫。

I'd like to come on to the question of guidance, again, as well, please. Your Q2 guidance seems quite strong versus what we had modeled coming in, yet your full year guidance is unchanged. GDPR comes into effect on May 25. Can you say -- all the comments we're hearing about friction and so forth, but can you say if there has been any advertiser reaction to GDPRs? And any concerns about spending, which it doesn't seem like you're saying, given the Q2 guidance and yet you remain cautious on the full year? So just want to understand from the advertiser's perspective what you're seeing? And then similarly relatedly, GDPR seems to us to bring some power to the walled garden, in particular, perhaps Google, which is making some pretty bold moves ahead of GDPR as well as perhaps to Amazon and yet Facebook, I think, maybe, obviously, what they've been going through, and given your comments on your access to Facebook data and your supplying of advertising to Facebook might be a different situation for you. I just wonder if you could talk a little bit more about those 3 big walled gardens, please?

我也想再談談指導問題。與我們的模型相比，您的第二季指導似乎相當強勁，但您的全年指導沒有變化。 GDPR 將於 5 月 25 日生效。你能說一下我們聽到的所有關於摩擦等的評論嗎？但你能說一下廣告商對 GDPR 是否有任何反應嗎？考慮到第二季的指導，您對支出是否有任何擔憂（您似乎沒有這麼說），但您對全年仍持謹慎態度？那麼只是想從廣告商的角度來了解您所看到的內容嗎？然後類似地，在我們看來，GDPR 似乎為圍牆花園帶來了一些力量，尤其是谷歌，它在 GDPR 之前做出了一些相當大膽的舉動，也許還有亞馬遜，但我認為，也許，顯然 Facebook 、他們所經歷的事情，以及您對訪問Facebook 資料和向Facebook 提供廣告的評論，對您來說情況可能會有所不同。我只是想知道您是否可以多談談那三個大圍牆花園？

Do you want to speak about the guidance?

您想談談指導嗎？

Yes, I can speak briefly about the guidance. I think what you are referring to when you say our guidance comes strong is probably around the EBITDA, where, as we've described, in Q1 we have some temporary savings and hiring delay, and we are not going to catch up on those hiring delays fully in Q2. So that is reflected in our guidance. With the respect to the top line in the guidance, reminding you that we are looking at minus 1 to plus 1 in terms of growth on the top line at constant currency. And that reflects as always with the same philosophy the best view we have, with the knowledge that we have at this point of demand from advertisers, and that reflects current the state of affairs. With respect to advertisers, I think many advertisers are still busy adapting to GDPR. We've not seen a strong reaction of this point. That being said, we want to be relatively cautious on the supply side, where there are still a certain number of question marks as to how large players are going to implement the consent management.

是的，我可以簡要地談談指導。我認為，當您說我們的指導強勁時，您指的是 EBITDA，正如我們所描述的，在第一季度，我們有一些暫時的節省和招聘延遲，而且我們不會趕上那些招聘第二季度完全延遲。這反映在我們的指導上。關於指引中的營收，提醒您，我們正在考慮以固定匯率計算的營收成長為負 1 到正 1。這一如既往地反映了我們所擁有的最佳觀點，以及我們目前對廣告商的需求的了解，並且反映了當前的事態。對於廣告商來說，我認為許多廣告商仍在忙於適應GDPR。我們還沒有看到這一點的強烈反應。話雖如此，我們希望在供應方面相對謹慎，對於多大的參與者將實施同意管理仍然存在一定的問號。

So the second part of your question is very interesting regarding walled gardens. And yes, of course, the big players have -- are seen as so-called walled gardens, which creates advantage for them because they can control in a very tight way at least all the data. But it creates also some limitation and in a way opportunities for us, in a way that some of our clients, they are a bit frustrated that there's data behind walled gardens and they don't fully understand what's going on with their own consumers. We have a different approach where we make this data very open and actionable for our clients. We have this, as you know, this coop view, where based on, obviously, on their -- on our clients consent, we pool data together and allow them to benefit from the network effect of all our partners. And I think this open approach, which is very different in terms of philosophy than the walled garden, resonates very well with our clients. And specifically when it's going to come to consent management, where nobody has 100% footprint on this, and ability to manage this consent across our different partners is something which has a lot of value for our partners. So in a way, we have a different philosophy than those walled gardens. There are some pros and some cons, and where we see a lot of opportunities to strengthen and deepen our relationship with our clients, given our open philosophy on this aspect.

所以你問題的第二部分關於圍牆花園非常有趣。是的，當然，大玩家被視為所謂的圍牆花園，這為他們創造了優勢，因為他們可以以非常嚴格的方式控制至少所有數據。但這也為我們帶來了一些限制，並在某種程度上創造了機會，我們的一些客戶對圍牆花園背後的數據感到有點沮喪，而且他們不完全了解自己的消費者發生了什麼。我們採用不同的方法，使這些數據對客戶來說非常開放且可操作。如你所知，我們有這樣的合作觀點，顯然，基於他們——我們的客戶的同意，我們將數據匯集在一起，讓他們從我們所有合作夥伴的網路效應中受益。我認為這種開放的方法在理念上與圍牆花園有很大不同，能夠與我們的客戶產生良好的共鳴。特別是在同意管理方面，沒有人能 100% 參與其中，而在我們不同的合作夥伴之間管理這種同意的能力對我們的合作夥伴來說具有很大的價值。所以在某種程度上，我們有與那些圍牆花園不同的哲學。有一些優點，也有一些缺點，鑑於我們在這方面的開放理念，我們看到了許多加強和加深與客戶關係的機會。

Thank you, JB. This would now conclude our earnings call. I'd like to thank everyone for attending. The IR team is available for any follow-up question that you may have. We wish you a very good end of day.

謝謝你，傑比。我們的財報電話會議到此結束。我要感謝大家的出席。 IR 團隊可以解答您可能遇到的任何後續問題。我們祝福您有個愉快的一天。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Thanks, everyone. Good one, bye-bye.

感謝大家。好的，再見。

This conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

本次會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。現在您可以斷開線路。