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Operator
Good afternoon. Welcome to Kaleyra's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. After the market close, Kaleyra released unaudited results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2021. The press release as well as a replay of today's call can be found on the company's Investor Relations website at investors.kaleyra.com. Please view the release for additional information on what will be discussed today.
Joining us today are Kaleyra's Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dario Calogero; and Chief Financial Officer, Giacomo Dall'Aglio. Following their remarks, we will open the call for your questions.
During today's call, management will be making forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's SEC filings, including the company's annual report on Form 10-K for a summary of the forward-looking statements and the risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements.
Kaleyra cautions investors not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events that occur, except as required by law.
Throughout today's press release and on the call, we'll refer to adjusted gross profit margin, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share. These metrics are not determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and therefore are susceptible to varying calculations. A definition, calculation and reconciliation to the financial statements of these non-GAAP measures can be found in the tables included in our press release. We believe these non-GAAP measures of Kaleyra's financial results provide useful information regarding certain financial and business trends and the results of operations.
Now I would like to turn the call over to Kaleyra's CEO, Dario Calogero. Sir, please proceed.
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. For those who are new to our story, I'll begin with a brief overview of our business. Kaleyra is a Communication Platform as a Service or CPaaS provider. From a high level, we provide our global partner base with an omnichannel suite of powerful APIs and visual tools to bridge the communication divide between businesses and their customers.
Brands worldwide often face coverage gaps when trying to communicate with their customers, especially in industries that require security and must prioritize reliability, such as financial institutions and health care. Our mission is to help build lasting relationships between brands and their customers across channels and to do so while providing service that our clients can trust.
Today, our success in bridging the gap between businesses and their customers has enabled us to move closer to our long-term vision of being the trusted global CPaaS provider for our partners worldwide. While we have made substantial progress towards realizing this vision over the past few years, our work over the last year, in particular, has accelerated our road map. Today's version of Kaleyra has increased capabilities and new plans across our global footprint and channel offering. Combined with consistent execution in our existing operations, we now have a more diversified approach to growth that will enable us to compete in more markets and at a greater scale.
Our Chief Financial Officer, Giacomo Dall'Aglio, will discuss our financial results shortly. But before I hand over the call, I would like to recap a few recent highlights from our stellar quarter and year.
Looking at some of our key operating metrics. In the fourth quarter, we delivered 15.1 billion billable messages and connected 1.7 billion voice calls, both representing new quarterly records for Kaleyra. In our largely volume-based business, this is a display of our ability to leverage the benefits of scale and is an area in which we hope to drive continued growth in the future. Financially, our fourth quarter results were a direct reflection of the new Kaleyra that we had to build throughout 2021.
Even through what was an uncertain and chaotic time for our industry and our partners, we remained consistent and outperformed even our own expectations, highlighted by our first quarter in which we were EBITDA positive in our time as a public company.
For both the quarter and year, we once again set new records for revenue, adjusted gross profit and adjusted EBITDA. Our full year revenue was $267.7 million, with $90 million coming in the fourth quarter. Even while only accounting for 7 months of mGage revenue following the acquisition date, this represented an 82% increase versus the prior calendar year and 103% increase for Q4 2021 versus Q4 2020.
Our 2021 adjusted gross profit was $61.4 million, with $22.8 million coming in the fourth quarter, with 145% increase compared to the year ago period. Our adjusted gross margin in the full year and the fourth quarter improved as well, with 22.9% and 25.3%, respectively.
Our full year adjusted EBITDA increased nearly 5x to $18.6 million, 7% of total revenue compared to $3.2 million, 2.2% of total revenue in the comparable year ago period. In the fourth quarter, adjusted EBITDA increased 498% to $9.6 million, 10.7% of total revenue compared to $1.6 million, 3.6% of total revenue in the comparable year ago period.
In addition to the above-record KPIs, our full year adjusted earnings per share achieved a new milestone by reaching $0.16 per basic share and $0.13 per diluted share based on 37 million and 48.1 million weighted average shares outstanding, respectively. We are encouraged by our ability to remain stable through choppy waters in our space and expect to continue achieving new milestones in the quarters ahead.
In addition to our standard measures of success within our business, this quarter, we are introducing a new KPI, which is our Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate. In line with standard industry definition, our Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate is a metric that says we identify rate at which customers' accounts increase their usage of a product, extend the usage of a product with new applications or adopt a new product within the Kaleyra platform. We think that Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate will be a meaningful indication of our efforts to increase revenue from existing customers. In 2021, our Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate was 130%.
Before I pass it over to Giacomo in just a moment, a few operational highlights stand out as well. As many of you listening today well know, in 2021, we successfully acquired and integrated mGage, bolstering our United States customer base and infrastructure network and added new products to our offering, specifically MMS and RCS messaging.
A key consideration in our combination with mGage was their existing messaging presence that immediately provided greater reach for our business. Much of the mGage footprint is in the United States, and they have direct connection to all Tier 1 carriers.
With this expansion into American markets through mGage infrastructure, for the fiscal year 2021, we were close to having around 1/3 of our revenue from each of the Americas, approximately 29%; Europe, approximately 36%; and Asia, approximately 35%, a favorable balance that makes Kaleyra one of the most prominent and geographically diverse CPaaS companies in the world.
We also successfully integrated Bandyer, now Kaleyra's video offering, as one of a multitude of investments towards expanding our omnichannel capabilities. One of our main goals for the year was to further develop our omnichannel services offering and in doing so, improve our margin profile as well.
Beyond providing the most robust suite of services to our partners, new channels such as video and audio calling had better margins than our traditional messaging channel due to the additional costs associated with messaging networks. This year, bolstered by investments, including the acquisition of Bandyer, Kaleyra video and audio made significant progress, highlighted by the aforementioned record volume in those channels.
We have already seen the impacts on this progress on our margin profile and while we have work ahead of us before our platform is truly omnichannel at a global scale, this advanced early progress points in our ongoing commitment to creating an omnichannel platform.
The combination of a steadily growing core messaging business, along with new evolving channels underlines both the robust opportunities available in our legacy business as well as the opportunity to grow our omnichannel offering. Our 2021 third quarter was our first full quarter with mGage and Bandyer completely integrated into the business. And we now believe we have reached the point in our integration where these businesses are part of Kaleyra. Now that our integration are more than a quarter in our rearview mirror, our continued growth rate and margin expansion indicates to us that our growth strategy within our traditional business unit remains viable.
We have a few other updates to share as well. First of all, in August, we successfully uplisted from the New York Stock Exchange American to the New York Stock Exchange. Graduating to the NYSE, a premier worldwide market, was a significant milestone. Being able to meet these more selective criteria is a testament to our improvement financially and operationally over the past few years.
This year, we also launched applications on both the Shopify and the Salesforce marketplaces, connecting our CPaaS channel to a potential addressable market of over 1 million users of their Software as a Service platforms.
This year was another strong year for the industry recognition as well. During the year, we received the following notable distinctions: CPaaS Provider of the Year at the Juniper Research Future Digital Awards 2022; Representative Vendor in Gartner's Market Guide for CPaaS; Established Leader in Global CPaaS by Juniper Research; One of the Top Chatbot Solution Providers by CIO Applications; Best RCS Provider at the Future Digital Awards by Juniper Research. We were also recognized as Trusted Vendor by Crozdesk and SoftwareSuggest's Customer Choice Award in 2021.
Lastly, we were recently awarded the Platinum Mover & Shaker in the Telco Industry Awards at the Juniper Research Future Digital Awards 2022. We very much appreciate the recognition we have received from such respected sources over the course of the year, recognition that validates the work our team is doing to build a more comprehensive platform of services. In aggregate, the growing number of industry accolades we are receiving underscore an increasing awareness of Kaleyra as a major player within the CPaaS market.
In summary, 2021 was a transformational year for our business, one that represents the reaffirmation of our deliberate growth strategy. As we move into 2022, we continue to believe that our growth strategy will drive sustainable long-term growth.
As a reminder, that strategy relies on 3 main pillars. One, we are focused on expanding our geographical footprint. As mentioned, Kaleyra revenue comes from global customers, and we are working to both expand our footprint and maintain our diverse revenue split among geographies. This ambition is driven by our view of the CPaaS market as a whole, which is very fragmented and underpenetrated in many parts of the world. We believe we are well positioned to expand our footprint to other geographies that would benefit from CPaaS support.
Two, we will continue to invest in our omnichannel suite of services. It's our goal to meet our partners on whichever channels they require to best connect with their customers. As video and voice communications proliferate globally, expanding into new communication streams remains an important area of investment for our team.
And lastly, we remain committed to the secure, trusted service. Our business thrives in industries that have the highest standards for security in their communication with their consumers. Banks, financial institutions, health care are examples they all need to be able to trust that their interaction with consumers are handled with the utmost security and consistency. Kaleyra delivers on that in a way that no other industry player does.
While other players strive for time and volume, we know that our expertise in trusted CPaaS influences customers' retention and that with the right partners, this is an area in which we can excel.
And with that, I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Giacomo Dall'Aglio, to discuss our financial results for the quarter in greater detail. Giacomo?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Thank you, Dario. Turning now to our financial results for the fourth quarter and the full year ended December 31, 2021. First of all, let me set the tone by saying that for both the quarter and the year, we once again achieved new records of our KPIs, revenue, adjusted gross profit, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share in our time as a public company.
Our total revenue in the fourth quarter increased 103% to $90 million from $44.3 million in the comparable year ago period. For the full year, total revenue increased 82% to $267.7 million from $147.4 million in the comparable year ago period. And these only account for 7 months of mGage revenue following the acquisition date.
The growth during the quarter and the year was driven by the complete integration of the mGage and Bandyer businesses as well as strong organic revenue growth across channels and a well-balanced portfolio across geographies. Gross profit increased 169% to $21.1 million from $7.8 million in the comparable year ago period. Gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2021 increased to 23.5% compared to 17.7% for the fourth quarter of 2020.
For the full year ended December 31, 2021. Gross profit increased 135% to $57.5 million from $24.4 million in the comparable year ago period. Gross margin in the full year 2021 increased to 21.5% compared to 16.6% for the full year 2020. Increases in gross profit were driven by increases in revenue for the quarter and the year that outpaced the cost increases. The increases in gross margin were largely due to the mGage and Bandyer integration and increased performance by Kaleyra video and Kaleyra voice as well by the Campaign Registry, our Software as a Service offering that has developed over the past few quarters.
Net loss totaled $7.3 million or $0.17 per share based on 41.9 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to a net loss of $4.5 million or $0.15 per share based on 29.7 million weighted average shares outstanding in the comparable year ago period.
For the full year 2021, net loss totaled $34 million or $0.92 per share based on 37 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to a net loss of $26.8 million or $1.09 per share based on 24.7 million weighted average shares outstanding in the comparable year ago period. The increase in net loss over the year was mainly due to transaction costs, fundraising costs and increasing amortization of acquired intangibles.
Adjusted gross profit, a non-GAAP measurement of operating performance, increased 184% to $22.8 million from $8 million in the comparable year ago period. Adjusted gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2021 was 25.3% compared to 18.1% in the comparable year ago period.
For the full year 2021, adjusted gross profit increased 145% to $61.4 million from $25.1 million in the comparable year ago period. Adjusted gross margin for the 2021 full year was 22.9% compared to 17% in the comparable year ago period.
Adjusted net income, a non-GAAP measurement of operating performance, increased 3,056% to $3.9 million or $0.09 per basic share and $0.08 per diluted share based on 41.9 million and 51.9 million weighted average shares outstanding, respectively, is an increase from $124,000 or $0 per both basic and diluted share based on 29.7 million and 42.8 million weighted average shares outstanding, respectively, in the comparable year ago period.
For the full year 2021, adjusted net income increased 1,023% to $6.1 million or $0.16 per basic share and $0.13 per diluted share based on 37 million and 48.1 million weighted average shares outstanding, respectively. This is an increase from a loss of $656,000 or $0.03 per basic and diluted share based on 24.7 million weighted average shares outstanding in the comparable year ago period.
Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measurement of operating performance, increased 5x to $9.6 million, 10.7% of total revenue, compared to $1.6 million, 3.6% of total revenue, in the comparable year ago period.
For the full year 2021, adjusted EBITDA increased nearly 5x to $18.6 million, 7% of total revenue, compared to $3.2 million, 2.2% of total revenue, in the comparable year ago period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to the impact of the business combination with mGage and Bandyer and cost synergy between the 2 legacy businesses.
At the end of the fourth quarter, cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments were $97.9 million compared to $37.8 million at December 31, 2020. Our solid financial position at the end of the fourth quarter is also reflected in our net current assets, which exceeded $80 million and in a significant reduction in our loan facility, reducing to $38.7 million at December 31, 2021, from $48 million at the end of the previous year.
Our debt financial strategy is only marginally exposed to a foreseeable raise in interest rate with over 80% of our financial billing coupon interest rate and an average variable interest rate under 3% bearing on our loans with Italian banks. For the full year 2021, net cash used in operating activity was $11.9 million, primarily affected by over $22 million transaction and fundraising cash outflows.
Before I turn the call back over to Dario, I'll now take a few minutes to provide our financial outlook for the remainder of the year. As a reminder, at this time, Kaleyra provides quarterly and annual revenue guidance as we believe these metrics to be key indicators for the overall performance of our business.
Moving to our guidance. As a reminder, our fiscal year for 2022 ends on December 31, 2022. As of today's call, we are now expecting revenue for the first quarter to range between $84 million and $86 million. And for the revenue, for the full year 2022, to range between $400 million and $405 million. Overall, we remain highly confident in the financial health of our business as well as our ability to substantially grow for the foreseeable future.
This completes my financial summary. I would now like to turn the call back over to Dario to wrap up our remarks for the call. Dario?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Thanks, Giacomo. Looking back, we believe this past year and the fourth quarter will serve as a bellwether for the future direction of our business. Our geographical footprint has materially expanded into a healthy global balance that we will look to maintain moving forward. Our inroads into new growth areas, including Kaleyra video and voice, along with promising results from the Campaign Registry, have begun to drive leverage into our operating model.
Combined with the records and growing volume we are driving across our global customer base, we see a clear path to scale and increase profitability over the long term. Above all, we have remained consistent in our ability to deliver on our promises and to execute against our growth strategy.
Moving forward, we will look to build on our steady track record and positive momentum as we advance along our journey to become the trusted partner in the rapidly expanding and evolving CPaaS market. And with that, we are ready to open the call for your questions. Operator, please provide the appropriate instructions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from the line of Tim Horan with Oppenheimer.
Timothy Kelly Horan - MD & Senior Analyst
I'm going to ask a few questions, if okay, and then I can -- I got a bunch, if I can hop back in line. But can you maybe talk about the currency and COVID impacts on revenue in the quarter and maybe on the guidance going forward, if you have that?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
This is Giacomo. I can take this question. So of course, we have an adverse effect on currency on revenues because the -- in euros because the euro's value declined when we transferred the revenue to dollars, and that can be an impact going forward, but is already included in the guidance of a few million dollars. So our guidance is still very solid, nevertheless, this effect.
Timothy Kelly Horan - MD & Senior Analyst
And any impact from COVID on the quarter? And maybe can you talk about the currency impact on the quarter you just reported?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Yes. About the COVID, let me say that it is much less affected from the past because the government adopted a new policy and there are not any big restrictions, in particular, in Italy and India, where we recovered very well. About the quarter, it is the same now for the next year projection because Q4 this year, we have a stronger dollar compared to the previous Q4 last year.
Timothy Kelly Horan - MD & Senior Analyst
Great. And then on the gross margin front, you obviously have a lot of leeway, if you want to grow revenues faster or slower, depending on the gross margin. Can you talk about do you think the gross margins can continue to expand here? Any kind of color around what you're expecting for gross margins in the next kind of year or 2?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Yes. So this is our record gross margin, adjusted gross margin is 25.3%, ever. And we are continually expanding, considering the seasonality. As you know very well, we have a seasonality in the second half of the year because margin is higher than in the first one, but we expect to increase gross margin in the next years.
Timothy Kelly Horan - MD & Senior Analyst
And then lastly, the Dollar-Based Net Expansion, 130% for the year, it was down a little bit in the fourth quarter. Can you give us the numbers, if you have them, for 2020, also the full year and the quarter, if you have them? Or why was it declining in the fourth quarter?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
So yes, yes. So we started from this quarter to give this, and we measure for the full year, that is 130%, and the quarter is 124%. Of course, the reason in the full year, only 7 months of mGage, so we changed a little bit the perimeter. But let me say that both are very, very strong and they demonstrate the ability to grow with the same customers for Kaleyra.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Jonnathan Navarrete with Cowen.
Jonnathan A. Navarrete - Research Analyst
And congrats on the quarter. In particular, a great job on the adjusted gross profit margin. Can you walk us through one of the main components -- what were the main components of the improvement? And to what extent did mGage revenue mix help in the improvement?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Yes. So maybe -- Giacomo, no, I wanted only to address briefly the question and then I will hand over to you. Jonnathan, in general, our gross margin tends to expand for multiple reasons, not only one reason. One is related to the integration with mGage, which, having a much wider footprint in the United States rather than Kaleyra before the combination, has been very accretive in terms of financial merit, so the -- in gross margin. So there has been a meld.
The other thing is that we're working on the product mix, investing in new channels that typically have a much higher gross margin. The Campaign Registry is a good example. Voice, video, all of these channels come with a higher gross margin because you don't have in the cost of goods sold the cost of the termination, which is switched, and it's more relevant and varies significantly by country.
The other thing that is helping is the scale because this is a volume business. The higher the volume, the better the terminations, and this is functional to the expansion towards the expansion of the gross margin. Giacomo, if you want to add anything to this...
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
No. So I think you addressed -- yes, you addressed all of them. So it's the product mix, the help of mGage for geographic footprint in the U.S., these are all the drivers that bring high the gross margin.
Jonnathan A. Navarrete - Research Analyst
Understood. On the revenue front, so $90 million for the quarter, how much did mGage contribute to that $90 million?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
In the quarter, mGage is $37.8 million.
Jonnathan A. Navarrete - Research Analyst
$37.8 million. Okay. And just the last one, if I may. I know you mentioned Campaign Registry. How is the process of that going? I think last quarter, we mentioned that the margins, they were around 80%. Did the margins remain at that level? Or are they changing...
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
No. Maybe you confused with Bandyer, that has a margin of about 80% of video. The margin for Campaign Registry is more around 70%, and I can disclose the revenue for the full year 2021 is $6.5 million for the full year.
Jonnathan A. Navarrete - Research Analyst
Perfect. Great. And congrats again.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Mike Latimore with Northland Capital.
Michael James Latimore - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Congratulations. Great results there. So I guess, Giacomo, on that comment you just made about the Campaign Registry at $6.5 million, that's the fair amount above, I think, what you were originally thinking kind of midyear. I guess can you just talk a little bit about the drivers of that? And do they continue into 2022? And any just general projections on the Campaign Registry for 2022?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Yes. So we started to record revenues, significant revenue, as I say, on the second half of the year. And we are in the scale-up of the operation with the Campaign Registry. And it is reasonable to us to forecast for next year -- for this year, 2022, to cross the double digits in revenue.
Michael James Latimore - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Okay. Very good. And then just in terms of the overall business, it seemed like demand was fairly broad-based. I guess are there any regions that are maybe outperforming more than others? And should that continue kind of this year?
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Well, I think that the revenue are very -- as Dario said during the call, is very well-balanced across the geography. We saw a very good recovery in India, in particular, in Asia, after the pandemic.
Michael James Latimore - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Right. And then mGage looks like it improved nicely sequentially. I guess did that sort of hit or exceed your internal goals? And then what are some of the main factors in the sequential improvement? Yes.
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Yes, yes. Yes, also better. So we received mGage in June, with $10.2 million revenue in the month of June. And this quarter, the average monthly revenue is $12.6 million. So we increased, in 7 months, 23.5%. I think it is very, very important to assume.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of George Sutton with Craig-Hallum.
George Frederick Sutton - Partner, Co-Director of Research & Senior Research Analyst
Dario, you mentioned that you're planning to invest in omnichannel. And obviously, you've got voice, video and SMS capabilities. So I'm curious what you mean by the investment in omnichannel. Are there iterations to those deliveries that you're talking about?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Good question. Hello, George. We still have to expand our reach, our geographical footprint of our omnichannel capabilities. So let me say, both voice, video, and the Campaign Registry, at the moment, have a local footprint in some regions, and we are working towards the expansion in the other regions of the same product.
And this is the explanation of the statement that I had made, that we will keep on investing in expanding the omnichannel play in multiple regions, rebalancing the mix between the traditional SMS business that is here to stay because SMS is very significant for Kaleyra and will keep on remaining very significant. But rebalancing the mix with other channels, this will be functional to the expansion of the gross margin profile and providing more value to the customers because it's easier through upselling of a new channel to an existing customer rather than winning a new customer, as you can reasonably imagine.
George Frederick Sutton - Partner, Co-Director of Research & Senior Research Analyst
Got you. No, that's helpful. You made a point that the market is both fragmented and underpenetrated. We are seeing a very rapid consolidation in this space. Can you discuss kind of what you're seeing around you from a consolidation opportunity?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Well, a lot of activities, a lot of talks among different players and different parties, a lot of work for the bankers, as you can imagine. And I believe that we are at the very, very early stage of the consolidation process, if you think that no one in the industry has a market share, a global market share, that is relevant in this market. So this market is due to keep on consolidating.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The next question comes from the line of Allen Klee with Maxim Group.
Allen Robert Klee - MD & Senior Equity Research Analyst
Can you just talk about how you think about this revenue synergy opportunity from mGage going forward?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
I will say one thing and then I will hand it over to Giacomo. We no longer think of Kaleyra and mGage. We have one Kaleyra and mGage is fully part of Kaleyra. And going forward, it's going to be also complicated to keep an accounting of the 2 separate businesses because they are not separated, and second thing, because due to the cross-selling and the upselling, there's a lot of significant inter-accounting between the 2, let me say, former legacy.
So we are one company. This company is Kaleyra, and Kaleyra is made by a number of different regions and a number of different pieces of products that are coming together into one firm.
So let me say, mGage is doing great and it's completely assimilated into Kaleyra. And at the moment, I'm in London because I had a management meeting with the team here in London, and they tell you that it's very, very promising. And also the customer meetings are very much appreciating the fact that we are now one firm.
Allen Robert Klee - MD & Senior Equity Research Analyst
My last question is how do you think about growth in operating expenses in 2022 relative to revenue growth?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Yes, yes. Giacomo, please go ahead.
Giacomo Dall’Aglio - CFO, Executive VP & Principal Accounting Officer
Yes. So for the year 2021, we have an adjusted EBITDA of about 7% of the revenue. We think we can improve this EBITDA next year. So we think that we can have an operating leverage even if we are going to invest in people, but our forecast is to improve our EBITDA and our margin.
Operator
The next question comes from Jeff Bernstein with Cowen.
Jeffrey M. K. Bernstein - VP
Dario and Giacomo, congratulations on a good quarter. A couple of questions for you. The -- while you're in the U.K., IMImobile was bought by Cisco quite a while ago now, and I guess, has been folded into WebEx. What have you seen in terms of any change there? Are they still a contender as a trusted CPaaS kind of player? Or have they become more generic? And any thoughts on your position as the trusted CPaaS player versus others out there?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Well, Jeff, thank you for the question. I do not want to say anything about a competitor because this would be unfair as a minimum. IMImobile is a very well-reputed company. But the strategy of IMImobile seems to be changing significantly with the integration wirh Cisco. So we see basically 2 pieces of product, the voice cloud contact center product, which is more, let me say, consistent with the offering of Cisco, well-integrated in the contact center product strategy, and the messaging part, which has been attached to the Webex.
So it's more like a UCaaS rather than CPaaS. And frankly speaking, we do not consider IMI a challenger of the position of Kaleyra, and we never meet IMImobile in any pitch on any customer. And the integration of IMImobile into Cisco, being a very good news for Cisco and IMImobile sellers, may unlock opportunities for Kaleyra.
Jeffrey M. K. Bernstein - VP
And in terms of anyone else out there that you see as a peer on the trusted element of CPaaS, is there really any one?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Frankly speaking, we think that our positioning, based on the 3 pillars that I had mentioned in the call, is unique, distinctive and defendable in the long term. So at the moment, we think we are pretty unique. Kaleyra is the trusted CPaaS, and I don't see any other trusted CPaaS around.
Jeffrey M. K. Bernstein - VP
That's great. And then could you just touch -- you had some fintech contracts in the Latin America region last year. Could you just talk a little bit about what's going on there?
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Well, in the business -- the new business development in Latin America has been significantly affected by the pandemic because basically, it's more difficult to entertain relationships with potential prospects and customers. So we are still working on it. And we think Latin America as a whole is a very promising market for our services, and we look very much forward to be able to travel again.
This week to me is the first week traveling for business over the last 2 years. I hope that we won't face further restrictions going forward and then looking very much forward to working with our leads in Latin America. Also because it's a market -- it's a large market, very innovative, with significant investments in innovation and in fintech.
Operator
At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Calogero for his closing remarks. Thank you.
Dario Calogero - Founder, CEO, President & Director
Thank you, operator, and thank you for joining us on today's call. As always, we would like to thank our extensive worldwide network of partners and investors and stakeholders as well as our employees for their continued support. Looking very much forward to the next earnings call.
Operator
Thank you. I would like to remind everyone that the recording of today's call will be available for replay via link available in the Investors section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for Kaleyra's Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect.