4GLOBAL PLC (AIM:4GBL) earlier this week updated investors on its performance for the first half of the year and its outlook for the future. CEO Eloy Mazon highlighted significant growth in international markets, particularly in North America, where revenue increased by 160% year-on-year. The company attributes this growth to its alignment with market needs and strategic partnerships with key technology providers.
Mazon said the company's profitability has improved due to a focus on high-margin offerings, including its Insight Solutions and Insight Platform. He added that these areas are driving sustainable growth and strengthening customer relationships.
The company has also embedded AI functionalities to manage vast data sets and deliver personalized insights. According to Mazon, these advancements have improved data processing efficiency by 60% and enhanced the customer experience with dynamic KPIs.
Proactive: What are the key achievements from the first half of the year?
Eloy Mazon: Multiple achievements in the first year. Probably far too many to go into all of them. But if I could just highlight three of them, I think first of all, our international expansion continues to be in full swing. We’re really happy with our growth in the North American market.
We've grown over 160% year-on-year. That’s thanks to a really good match between what we offer and what the market needs. The European Union continues to grow, by 6%, and we believe there’s still a fair bit of growth left in that market. We’re very happy with how that’s contributing.
The Middle East, which is more of a reactive market, is very exciting and key for us. We’ve been managing risk there, but I’m sure we’ll get back to that later.
The second point to highlight is how our profitability growth continues to be on the up—not just at the EBITDA level but also on the gross margin level. That’s a testament to our migration towards more profitable parts of our offering, like Insight Solutions and the Insight Platform. We expect that to continue. It’s good to see those numbers growing in the right direction.
And thirdly, we are constantly looking at retaining our leadership position in the market and future-proofing our organization. We’ve invested significant time into launching the next generation of products to engage more with customers and make our data and insights more accessible.
Proactive: Eloy, maybe just focusing on that North American market. Why do you see this as such an important market, and how have you got to this point?
Eloy Mazon: The North American market for us targets two big client groups. One is the sporting bodies, like national sporting federations, sporting clubs, and franchises. For example, you might have seen our announcement around U.S. Soccer. We’re building a really good partnership with them. They do fantastic work around growing the game of soccer in North America, which is projected to be the second-largest sport by the time the World Cup hits in 2026.
The second client group is the operators of fitness and health facilities. That segment includes the public sector, private sector, and parks and recreation. It’s a huge market worth over $100 billion annually. Our approach here is to work through sales channel partners. We’ve partnered with Jonas, Daxko, and Xplor to cover the spectrum of health and fitness operators. This approach allows us to penetrate the market without huge investment.
We’re excited about the opportunities in this market because we have all the building blocks in place—a great offering, strong partners, and fantastic existing customers. That’s why we’re optimistic not just about the second half of the year but also the future.
Proactive: You mentioned the Middle East, with revenues down 61% following a change in approach. What action have you taken, and what does it mean for the business going forward?
Eloy Mazon: We love the Middle East and see it as a great market. However, given our size as a business, the risk around payment terms needs careful management. At the end of last year, we had significant debt in that region, which we’ve been recovering gradually. We decided to operate there under a different commercial mandate. This doesn’t mean we’re exiting the market. We’re just being more selective about which clients we engage with and opting for direct engagements rather than partnerships.
As a result, while total revenue in the region has gone down, we now have a solid set of customers and strong relationships. We’re managing the risk around payment terms effectively while recovering the existing debt.
Proactive: That improvement in profitability, Eloy, how have you achieved that, and what can investors expect going forward?
Eloy Mazon: Our offering has three key parts. The first is Insight Labs, which focuses on answering big questions for customers. For example, “Where should I invest $70 million in new facilities?” or “How do I ensure 75% of people engage in sports at a new facility?”
The second part is Insight Solutions, where customers use our platform and data for actionable insights around growth, operations, and investments. Here, we include customer success support to ensure customers maximize value from the platform, making it a must-have rather than a nice-to-have.
The third part is the Insight Platform, a traditional software licensing model. Many Insight Solutions customers eventually migrate to this. We’re focusing on growing these higher-margin areas, which are driving profitability.
Proactive: You talked about future-proofing the business and embedding AI and machine learning functionalities. What does this enable, and what’s next in product innovation?
Eloy Mazon: AI is a huge opportunity in our space, but we’re careful and selective in how we use it. On the back end, AI helps us process and manage the vast amounts of data we collect—over one million data points daily in England alone. This has improved efficiency by 60% and reduced costs.
On the front end, AI enables personalized insights for customers. For example, in retention analysis for operators, we’ve gone from managing one or two variables to handling 50-60 variables. AI lets us offer dynamic KPIs that show customers what they should focus on next, rather than just static metrics. This is possible because of our extensive data sets.
Proactive: How’s the second half begun, and how do you feel about your prospects going forward?
Eloy Mazon: We’re in line with market expectations for the full year. We have a significant sales pipeline that we’re confident about converting. Our second halves are always busy, and we’re getting excellent feedback and high demand from customers. About 70-80% of our pipeline is in international markets, continuing the trend we started last year. We’re also excited about upcoming product launches.