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UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
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☒ | ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2020
or
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☐ | TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
for the transition period from to
Commission file number: 001-36153
Criteo S.A.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
| | | | | | | | |
France | | Not Applicable |
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) | | (I.R.S. Employer Identification Number) |
32 Rue Blanche, 75009 Paris—France
(Address of principal executive offices including zip code)
Registrant's telephone number, including area code: +33 1 40 40 22 90
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
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(Title of class) | | (Trading Symbol(s)) | (Name of exchange on which registered) | |
American Depositary Shares, each representing one ordinary share, nominal value €0.025 per share | | CRTO | Nasdaq Global Select Market | |
Ordinary shares, nominal value €0.025 per share | * | | Nasdaq Global Select Market | * |
* Not for trading, but only in connection with the registration of the American Depositary Shares.
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes x No ☐
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No x
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes x No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," "smaller reporting company," and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
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Large Accelerated Filer | ☒ | Accelerated Filer | ☐ |
Non-accelerated Filer | ☐ | Smaller reporting company | ☐ |
Emerging growth company | ☐ | | |
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management's assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No ☒
The aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of the last business day of the registrant's most recently completed second fiscal quarter was $754 million, based on the closing sale price of the American Depositary Shares as reported by the Nasdaq Global Select Market on June 30, 2020. Ordinary shares, nominal value €0.025 per share, held by each officer and director and by each person who owns or may be deemed to own 10% or more of the outstanding ordinary shares have been excluded since such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.
As of February 26, 2021, the registrant had 60,761,359 ordinary shares, nominal value €0.025 per share, outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Part III incorporates certain information by reference from the registrant’s proxy statement for the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Such proxy statement will be filed no later than 120 days after the close of the registrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2020.
CRITEO S.A.
ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K
For The Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Item 1 | | | |
Item 1A | | | |
Item 1B | | | |
Item 2 | | | |
Item 3 | | | |
Item 4 | | | |
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Item 5 | | | |
Item 6 | | | |
Item 7 | | | |
Item 7A | | | |
Item 8 | | | |
Item 9 | | | |
Item 9A | | | |
Item 9B | | | |
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Item 10 | | | |
Item 11 | | | |
Item 12 | | | |
Item 13 | | | |
Item 14 | | | |
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Item 15 | | | |
Item 16 | | | |
General
Except where the context otherwise requires, all references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K ("Form 10-K") to the "Company," "Criteo," "we," "us," "our" or similar words or phrases are to Criteo S.A. and its subsidiaries, taken together. In this Form 10-K, references to "$" and "US$" are to United States dollars. Our audited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, or U.S. GAAP. Unless otherwise indicated, the statistical and financial data contained in this Form 10-K are presented as of December 31, 2020.
Trademarks
"Criteo," the Criteo logo and other trademarks or service marks of Criteo S.A. appearing in this Form 10-K are the property of Criteo S.A. Trade names, trademarks and service marks of other companies appearing in this Form 10-K are the property of their respective holders.
Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), that are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. All statements other than present and historical facts and conditions contained in this Form 10-K, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, business strategy, plans and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this Form 10-K, the words "anticipate," "believe," "can," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "is designed to," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "objective," "should," or the negative of these and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:
•the ongoing effect of the novel coronavirus pandemic ("COVID-19"), including its macroeconomic effects, on our business, operations, and financial results; and the effect of governmental lockdowns, restrictions and new regulations on our operations and processes;
•the ability of the Criteo Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine to accurately predict engagement by a user;
•our ability to predict and adapt to changes in widely adopted industry platforms and other new technologies;
•our ability to continue to collect and utilize data about user behavior and interaction with advertisers and publishers;
•our ability to acquire an adequate supply of advertising inventory from publishers on terms that are favorable to us;
•our ability to meet the challenges of a growing and international company in a rapidly developing and changing industry, including our ability to forecast accurately;
•our ability to maintain an adequate rate of revenue growth and sustain profitability;
•our ability to manage our international operations and expansion and the integration of our acquisitions;
•the effects of increased competition in our market;
•our ability to adapt to regulatory, legislative or self-regulatory developments regarding internet privacy matters;
•our ability to protect users’ information and adequately address privacy concerns;
•our ability to enhance our brand;
•our ability to enter new industry verticals, new marketing channels and new geographies;
•our ability to effectively scale our technology platform;
•our ability to attract and retain qualified employees and key personnel;
•our ability to maintain, protect and enhance our brand and intellectual property; and
•failures in our systems or infrastructure.
You should refer to Item 1A "Risk Factors" of this Form 10-K for a discussion of important factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. As a result of these factors, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this Form 10-K will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, if our forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame or at all. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
You should read this Form 10-K and the documents that we reference in this Form 10-K and have filed as exhibits to this Form 10-K completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.
This Form 10-K contains market data and industry forecasts that were obtained from industry publications. These data and forecasts involve a number of assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to such information. We have not independently verified any third-party information. While we believe the market position, market opportunity and market size information included in this Form 10-K is generally reliable, such information is inherently imprecise.
Summary Risk Factors
Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the information in “Item 1A. Risk Factors”, which are summarized below:
•If we fail to innovate, enhance our brand, adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, our offerings may become less competitive or obsolete. Our investments in new solutions and technologies to address new marketing goals for our clients are inherently risky and may not be successful.
•We face intense and increasing competition for employee talent, and if we do not retain and continue to attract highly skilled talent or retain our senior management team and other key employees, we may not be able to sustain our growth or achieve our business objectives.
•The market in which we participate is intensely competitive, and we may not be able to compete successfully with our current or future competitors.
•If we fail to access a consistent supply of advertising inventory and expand our access to such inventory, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
•The failure by Criteo AI Engine to accurately predict engagement by users could result in significant costs to us, lost revenue and diminished advertising inventory.
•Regulatory, legislative or self-regulatory developments regarding internet privacy matters could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business.
•Our success depends on our ability to implement our business transformation and achieve our global business strategies.
•Our international operations and expansion expose us to several risks.
•Our future success will depend in part on our ability to expand into new industry verticals.
•We are a company operating in a rapidly evolving industry, which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful. Our historical growth rates may not be indicative of our future growth, and we expect our operating and capital investments to continue to increase in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, we may have difficulty sustaining profitability.
•We derive a significant portion of our revenue from companies in the retail, travel and classified industries, and any downturn in these industries or any changes in regulations affecting these industries could harm our business.
•Our ability to generate revenue depends on our collection of significant amounts of data from various sources, which may be restricted by consumer choice, imposed by clients, publishers and browsers or other software, changes in technology, and new developments in laws, regulations and industry standards.
•Our business involves the use, transmission and storage of personal data and confidential information, and the failure to properly safeguard such information could result in significant reputational harm and monetary damages.
•Failures in the systems and infrastructure supporting our solutions and operations, including as we scale our offerings, could significantly disrupt our operations and cause us to lose clients.
•If we are unable to protect our proprietary information or other intellectual property, our business could be adversely affected.
•Our business may suffer if it is alleged or determined that our technology or another aspect of our business infringes the intellectual property rights of others.
•The market price for the ADSs have been and may continue to be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance.
•ADS holders may be subject to limitations on the transfer of their ADSs and the withdrawal of the underlying ordinary shares.
•The rights of shareholders in companies subject to French corporate law differ in material respects from the rights of shareholders of corporations incorporated in the United States.
•We have significant global sales and operations and face risks related to health epidemics that could impact our sales and operating results. In particular, our business has been and we expect will continue to be negatively impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global attempt to contain it.
•In periods of economic uncertainty, businesses may delay or reduce their spending on advertising, and we are exposed to the credit risk of some of our clients and customers, which could materially harm our business.
PART I
Item 1. Business
History and Development of the Company
Criteo S.A. was initially incorporated as a société par actions simplifiée, or S.A.S., under the laws of the French Republic on November 3, 2005, for a period of 99 years and subsequently converted to a société anonyme, or S.A. We are registered at the Paris Commerce and Companies Register under the number 484 786 249. Our agent for service of process in the United States is National Registered Agents, Inc.
Business Overview
We are a global technology company powering the world's marketers with trusted and impactful advertising. We operate at the intersection of ecommerce, digital marketing and media monetization. We enable brands' and retailers' growth by providing best-in-class marketing and monetization services on the open Internet. We do this by activating commerce data through artificial intelligence ("AI") technology, reaching consumers on an extensive scale across all stages of the consumer journey, and generating advertising revenues from consumer brands for large retailers. Our vision is to build the world's leading Commerce Media Platform to deliver measurable business outcomes at scale for global brands, agencies and retailers across multiple marketing goals. Our data is pooled among our clients and publishers and offers deep insights into consumer intent and purchasing habits. To drive trusted and impactful advertising, we activate our data assets in a privacy-by-design way through proprietary AI technology to engage consumers in real time with highly relevant digital advertisements ("ads") across devices and environments.
Our focus is on ecommerce. Our clients include some of the largest and most sophisticated ecommerce companies in the world, along with world-class consumer brands. We partner with them to capture user activity on their websites and mobile applications ("apps"), which we define as digital properties, and optimize the performance of their ads based on that activity and other data. Demonstrating the depth and scale of our data, we collected data on over $950 billion in online sales transactions1 on our clients' digital properties in the year ended December 31, 2020. Based on this data and other assets, we delivered 1.6 trillion targeted ads in the year ended December 31, 2020. As of December 31, 2020, we served more than 21,000 clients and, in each of the last three years, our average client retention rate, as measured on a quarterly basis, was approximately 90%.
We have established our leading market position by focusing on three pillars: actionable commerce data, predictive technology to activate this data for multiple marketing goals, and large consumer reach through our extensive direct publisher network. While continuously improving our technology and broadening our reach, we leverage and strengthen Criteo Shopper Graph, a highly differentiated group of data collectives built through collaboration and data pooling within our open ecosystem of commerce and consumer brand clients and publishers. Criteo Shopper Graph is one of the world's biggest data sets focused on shoppers, retailers and brands.
Each day, we are presented with billions of opportunities to connect consumers with relevant advertising messages from our commerce and consumer brand clients. For each of these opportunities, our algorithms analyze massive volumes of shopping data to predict consumer preferences and intent, and deliver specific messaging for products or services that are likely to engage that particular consumer. The accuracy of our algorithms improves with every ad we deliver, as they incorporate new data while continuing to learn from prior interactions.
Historically, the Criteo model had focused solely on converting our clients' website visitors into customers, enabling us to charge our clients when users engage with an ad we deliver, usually by clicking on it. This pay-for-performance pricing model clearly links the cost of an advertising campaign to its effectiveness in driving conversions, and continues to be valued as such by our clients. We have since expanded our solutions to address a broader range of marketing and monetization goals for our clients, including audience targeting and brand awareness. We leverage pricing models consistent with industry standards that include cost-per click, cost-per-impression and cost-per-install, as well as volume-based fees for brands and large retailers using Retail Media, and, in certain cases, a set fee for the use of our platform capability.
During 2020 we operated in 104 countries.
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1 Excluding Criteo Retail Media.
Our financial results include:
•Revenue of $2,072.6 million, $2,261.5 million and 2,300.3 million for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively;
•Revenue excluding Traffic Acquisition Costs, or Revenue ex-TAC, which is a non-U.S. GAAP financial measure, of $825.0 million, $946.6 million and $966.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively;
•Net income of $74.7 million, $96.0 million and $95.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively; and
•Adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-U.S. GAAP financial measure, of $251.0 million, $299.0 million and $321.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Please see footnotes 3, 4 and 5 to the "Other Financial and Operating Data" table in "Item 6. Selected Financial Data" in this Form 10-K for a reconciliation of revenue to Revenue ex-TAC, net income to Adjusted EBITDA and net income to Adjusted Net Income, respectively, in each case the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States or "U.S. GAAP".
The Criteo Commerce Media Platform
Our offering, the Criteo Commerce Media Platform, is powered by AI technology and provides marketing and monetization services for brands and retailers. Our technology is optimized to drive trusted and impactful business outcomes for our retailer and brand clients, including, for example, consumer visits to a client website, installations of an app, product sales and monetization of retailers' inventory with consumer brands. We deliver these measurable results by efficiently and effectively driving engagement for our clients' brand, shops, apps, products and services, and generating advertising revenue for retailers by monetizing their data and audiences with consumer brands.
Criteo solutions work seamlessly across digital devices (desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets), commerce and advertising environments (browsers, apps, connected TV and physical retail stores), platforms and operating systems, advertising channels (display, including social and native, video, and ads on retailers' properties) and publisher environments (thousands of direct publishers and mobile app developers in the open Internet, and all major real-time bidding exchanges).
The Criteo Commerce Media Platform is made available as individual products and services as part of our offering.
The Criteo Commerce Media Platform is comprised of:
•Criteo Shopper Graph
•Criteo AI Engine
•Criteo Solutions: Criteo Marketing Solutions and Criteo Retail Media
In addition, the Criteo Commerce Media Platform leverages the extensive scale and user reach of our first-party media network across the open Internet.
Criteo Shopper Graph
Our data assets include all insights derived from our clients' proprietary commerce data, such as transaction activity on their digital properties, representing over $950 billion in online sales on a combined basis in 2020, representing approximately 48% of the global retail ecommerce sales excluding China1, or $2.6 billion worth of transactions per day on average.
Through direct integration with our clients' digital properties, we obtain large volumes of first-party data, expressed consumer shopping intent and engagement, and transactional data at individual product or service levels, which do not rely on cross-site tracking technologies, such as third-party cookies. The information we collect is anonymized and does not enable us to personally identify any particular consumer.
Our high quality first-party data assets fuel the accuracy of our algorithms, which improves with the increasing quantity and quality of data we obtain from our clients and publisher partners, as well as insights gained through our own extensive operational history. The combination of advertiser data, publisher data and proprietary metadata gives us powerful insights into consumer purchasing habits that we use to price inventory and create the most relevant ads to drive user engagement and impactful results for our clients. In addition to commerce data at the granular product SKU level, we seek to use as much relevant information as possible about the context and intent of a given user, collected from clients and publisher partners, to further refine our prediction accuracy.
We believe our access to highly granular first-party commerce data validates the trust that our clients place in us. Most of our clients typically provide real-time access to the products or services a visitor has viewed, researched, added to their shopping cart, or bought from them, and continuously receive updated information on over 4 billion products or services3 across 3,500 product categories, including pricing, images and descriptions, which are typically characterized as non-Personally Identifiable Information ("non-PII"). A large number of our clients also provide us with their customers' purchase history data in formats that are also non-PII.
Over the past few years, we have built data collectives through data pooling among our clients and publishers. The combination of these data collectives forms Criteo Shopper Graph. For each of these data collectives, we ask our clients to grant us the permission to mutualize a significant portion of their proprietary data in an anonymized way with other clients who also contribute data to this collective data pool. With Criteo Shopper Graph, we have built one of the world's largest and most open data sets focused on shoppers and their commerce activity across retailers and brands, and their activity on publisher properties.
Criteo Shopper Graph is comprised of the following data collectives:
•The Identity Graph allows us to match user identifiers provided by clients and publishers across devices and environments, both online and offline. Our algorithms link user identifiers together when they are deemed to belong to the same user. Examples of user identifiers in the Identity Graph are: hashed customer logins and hashed emails, first-party and third-party cookies, app identifiers such as Apple's IDFA and Android's AAID, in addition to linkages such as the Trade Desk's Unified ID 2.0 or LiveRamp's IdentityLink. The graph has billions of identifiers, which we believe cover about 2.5 billion unique users globally. With Criteo's reach, we collect commerce data in real time on an estimated 500 million Daily Active Users, half of which are identifiable by a hashed email. As of December 31, 2020, over two third of our clients grant us access to some of their first-party identity data to enable us to match users across multiple digital devices or environments. In addition, the Identity Graph allows us to leverage offline CRM data of our clients' physical stores to match it with online user profiles, based on their offline shopping history. The Identity Graph supports and benefits the entire suite of solutions of our Commerce Media Platform.
•The Interest Map collects and organizes consumer intent and purchasing data across the products available in our network of commerce clients, in order to build a comprehensive and accurate non-identifying shopper profile for all consumers on whom we have collected data. Our Interest Map applications include the Universal Catalog, which provides category and/or brand enrichment, as well as a unified view of the 4 billion products SKUs, across 3,500 product categories, available across the combined catalogs of our 21,000 commerce clients2. Every day, we collect data on over $2.5 billion in online sales on average through 75 million buyer journeys. With the Interest Map, we seek our clients' permission to use their data, on an aggregated and anonymized basis, to power products that are jointly offered to our clients in the collective.
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1 Source: eMarketer.
2 Products are not unique and may appear in different retailer catalogs.
The design and governance of Criteo Shopper Graph are based on strict and differentiated guiding principles:
•Openness: we commit to a two-way exchange of data with our clients and publishers, whereby all parties contributing data to the collectives, in return for their contribution, benefit from the collective dataset via the Commerce Media Platform, and access cross-device user IDs and relevant Key Performance Indicators to better inform and optimize their advertising.
•Transparency: our clients' contribution and sharing of data within the data pools are based on a clear and permission-based usage by Criteo for the mutual benefits of all participants in the data collectives.
•Security: we apply the highest data security and user privacy standards to our data collectives.
•Fairness: our data collectives are designed and governed in ways such that the value gained by each participating client largely exceeds the individual client's contribution to the collectives, irrespective of its size.
Consistent with our data minimization principles, our technologies only rely on categories of data that are strictly necessary for the purpose of our services. The user information we collect relates primarily to purchase intent and is therefore not considered as information that can directly identify a user. In addition, we provide consumers with easy-to-use and easy-to-access mechanisms to control their advertising experience and opt out of receiving targeted ads we deliver. This transparent, consumer-centric, and controllable approach to privacy empowers consumers to make better-informed decisions about our use of their data. We also actively encourage our clients and publisher partners to provide transparent and clear information to consumers about our collection and use of data relating to the ads we deliver and monitor.
Criteo AI Engine
Criteo AI Engine consists of multiple artificial intelligence algorithms, and the proprietary global hardware and software infrastructure that enables the Commerce Media Platform to operate in real time at significant scale, and activate our datasets for effective advertising.
Criteo AI Engine leverages the Shopper Graph, with the goal of maximizing consumer engagement to drive impactful business results for clients through the delivery of highly relevant and personalized ads in real time.
Criteo AI Engine consists of:
•Lookalike finder algorithms. These algorithms create user audiences, or groups of consumers likely to be interested in and engage with a specific category of our clients’ products or services, from a predetermined audience seed based on other clients’ audiences that were already targeted and exposed to similar products or services in the context of previous advertising campaigns. Once created, these audiences are used by Criteo AI Engine as targets to reach and be exposed to tailored ads for relevant products or services for the purpose of a dedicated campaign. This set of algorithms typically supports campaign types addressing Audience Targeting objectives, i.e. driving new prospects to consider products or services with which they have not yet engaged in the past.
•Recommendation algorithms. These algorithms create ads tailored to specific consumer interest and intent by determining the specific products or services to include in the ad. These products and services may be ones that the consumer has already been exposed to, or that the algorithms predict the customer could be interested in. Alternatively, these may be products and services that other consumers within Criteo Shopper Graph have been interested in.
•Dynamic Creative Optimization+ (DCO+). Based on the results of our dynamic creative algorithms, Criteo AI Engine automatically and dynamically assembles customized creative ad content on an impression-per-impression basis in real time, by optimizing each individual creative component in the ad, from the font, color, size and format of product images to the "call to action" or price discount. Our patented Dynamic Creative Optimization+ technology offers virtually unlimited personalization, with up to 17 trillion visual ad variations, without the need to define ad sizes or layouts upfront, while always maintaining the consistency of our clients' brand image.
•Predictive bidding algorithms. These algorithms predict the probability and nature of a user's engagement with a given ad. Such predicted user engagement can take the form of, for example, retailer site visits, clicks, conversions, shopping basket value, specific product categories purchased, or even the gross margin of the purchased product or service that our client generates from such purchase. This prediction of engagement incorporates data from our clients, publishers and third-party sources, including user intent, who the client is, the products offered in the ad, as well as data on the creative content of the ad and the publisher context in which the ad is displayed.
Together with our recommendation algorithms, the prediction algorithms allow us to determine the most appropriate price to pay for an ad impression, based on an individual user's predicted engagement, what the client is willing to pay for that engagement, as well as Criteo's own target Revenue ex-TAC margin from placing that individual ad. Our bidding engine executes campaigns based on certain objectives set by our clients (such as cost-per-click, cost-per-order, cost-of-sales, cost-per-visit, cost-per-impression, cost-per-install or total campaign budget). After a bid for an ad impression is placed and won, Criteo AI Engine assembles and delivers individualized ads, and provides campaign reporting in near-real time.
•Software systems and processes. Our algorithms are supported by robust software infrastructure that allows us to operate seamlessly at a very large scale, through our network of more than 49,000 servers as of the end of 2020. The architecture and processing capabilities of this technology have been designed to match the massive computational demands and complexity of our algorithms in real time. This technology enables data synchronization, storage and analysis across a large-scale distributed computing infrastructure in multiple geographies, as well as fast data collection and retrieval using multi-layered caching infrastructure.
•Experimentation platform. We use an online/offline testing platform to improve the capabilities and effectiveness of our prediction models by measuring the correlation of specific parameters with user engagement, usually measured by consumer visits, clicks and conversions, typically in the form of sales. A dedicated team is constantly testing new types and sources of data, as well as new variables, to determine whether they help diminish the gap between, for example, predicted visits, click-throughs and conversions, and actual visits, click-throughs and conversions over the course of a live campaign.
A key attribute of Criteo AI Engine is the vast metadata of learnings on advertising and commerce effectiveness that we have accumulated from having delivered and measured responses to over 9 trillion advertising impressions since our Company's inception. Our Research & Development team constantly tunes Criteo AI Engine via experimentation and A/B tests. For example, in 2020, we performed about 1,000 online A/B tests and over 70,000 offline experiments and tests.
In addition, we have long established and adopted Privacy-by-design as a central element of our technology and product design and development cycles, with a strong commitment to ensuring best practices in privacy, security and safety for consumers and our retailer and brand clients. Since 2013, we have had a designated Data Privacy Officer along with a team of privacy experts. These experts are integrated within our R&D and Product organizations and processes, and consider all facets of user privacy as key elements in the very design of any new technology, solution or feature of the Commerce Media Platform. They also perform ongoing Privacy Impact Assessments to monitor potential risks during the product lifecycle and proactively mitigate those risks. The Data Privacy team delivers company-wide privacy training, enforces our privacy policies and is integral to ensuring that we build the best solutions and services. We regularly review and document our internal privacy policies, amend existing policies as necessary and enforce these policies with our clients, publisher partners and vendors.
Our Solutions
Our marketing and monetization solutions for retailers and brands are grouped under two families:
•Criteo Marketing Solutions allow commerce companies to engage consumers with personalized ads across the full marketing funnel, leveraging online and offline store data.
◦Examples of expected business outcomes include:
▪Awareness: creating and building brand awareness for a client's existing or new product or service, by targeting relevant high-quality consumer audiences showing intent for that particular product or service and reaching these audiences, for example, through video ads across the breadth of our premium publisher network on the open Internet;
▪Audience Targeting: driving visits from new prospects on the website of our clients, or driving installations of our clients' apps by new customers, by engaging such prospect visitors online (either on the web, in apps or on connected TV), with personalized ads offering products or services tailored to their predicted interest through our audience targeting capabilities, based on our Shopper Graph data and/or contextual signals;
▪Conversion: driving sales for commerce clients by engaging consumers online, with personalized ads offering products or services for which they have already expressed shopping intent; or driving more sales from existing customers of our commerce clients, by accurately targeting and re-engaging these existing customers online with personalized ads offering new products or services that they have not yet purchased nor been exposed to.
◦Our clients' use and consumption of Criteo Marketing Solutions is made flexible through a set of tools and services:
▪Our clients have access to an integrated self-service customer interface, called the Management Center, providing transparency, control and visibility over their marketing investments and campaigns with us, whatever their business and marketing goals may be. This interface enables the flexible and modular consumption of our various solutions directly by our clients, as well as the execution and management of their campaigns through a suite of software and services that automates key campaign processes, and a high level of control over the objectives, parameters and performance of their various campaigns with us. Criteo Management Center reduces unnecessary complexity and cost associated with manual processes of having to use multiple Demand-Side Platforms ("DSPs") and sources of inventory supply, delivering efficiencies across the marketing funnel, even as campaigns grow in size, complexity and mix of marketing goals.
▪In addition to self-service access to Criteo Management Center, we also offer a managed-service approach to our larger clients, providing deep business intelligence and analytics services. Our teams of advisers aid our larger clients in setting goals for, extracting insights from, and evaluating trends and performance of their various advertising campaigns with us across multiple marketing goals, sources of inventory, advertising channels, and the multiple digital devices that consumers may use.
▪In addition, we offer multiple API integrations for certain partners and clients to enable the management of our clients' advertising investments with us in a unified and integrated way with some of their other advertising or marketing technology partners which makes Criteo solutions directly available in their back-office.
▪In parallel with accessing transparent reporting and measurement from Criteo Management Center, a large proportion of our clients regularly use their own attribution tools and solutions from third-party vendors (such as, for example, Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings, Google Analytics, IBM Coremetrics or Adobe Analytics) to independently measure and assess the performance of the results that Criteo delivers, including visits, sales and other key metrics.
•Criteo Retail Media allows retailers to generate high-margin advertising revenues from consumer brands looking to address multiple marketing goals, and/or to drive sales for themselves, by monetizing their audiences through personalized ads, either on their own digital property or on the open Internet.
◦Examples of expected business outcomes include:
▪generating advertising revenue for retailers on their online store, by providing retailers with self-service access to our technology platform for them to monetize their commerce data, traffic and audiences directly with consumer brands across various marketing goals;
▪driving sales for consumer brand clients on the site of retailer partners, by connecting consumer brands and retailers and engaging consumers on the retailer's digital property with personalized ads offering specific brand products available on the retailer's digital store and for which consumers have expressed interest;
▪driving sales for consumer brand clients on the site of retailer partners, by connecting consumer brands and retailers and engaging consumers outside of the retailer property on the open Internet with personalized ads offering specific brand products available on the retailer's digital store and for which consumers have expressed interest;
◦Our retailer and brand clients respectively manage their Retail Media revenues and budgets using a self-service interface called the Retail Media Platform. The Retail Media Platform provides flexible pricing options to brands: guaranteed placement (cost-per-impression) and auction-based (cost-per-click). We charge retailers a negotiated supply-side platform fee and sometimes a technology fee, while brands pay us a negotiated demand-side platform fee. In addition, we may charge brands a managed-service fee and other fees for accessing additional insights.
In 2020, Criteo Retail Media accounted for more than 10% of our total consolidated revenue.
The below chart shows the product mix evolution of Criteo's business and the year-over-year growth in new solutions in fiscal 2020.
Our Publisher Network
We provide our clients with extensive real-time access to advertising inventory through direct relationships with thousands of publisher partners, as well as real-time bidding (or "RTB") Display Advertising exchanges. We define inventory as the combination of desktop web, mobile web, mobile in-app display, including social, native, and video displays, connected TV, and ad inventory on major retail ecommerce properties, including standard banners, native and sponsored product formats.
In some cases, we have negotiated direct and privileged access with publishers, giving us the opportunity to select, buy and price, on an impression-per-impression basis and in real time: (1) inventory that a publisher might otherwise only sell subject to minimum volume commitments; and/or (2) particular ad impressions before such impressions are made available to other potential buyers. Among their multiple benefits, these direct relationships give us access to first-party publisher data which allow us to bid on impressions without using third-party cookies. We call this network of direct publisher relationships, together with direct integrations with retailers, our First-Party Media Network.
We believe that many of our direct publisher partners have granted us preferred access to portions of their inventory as a result of our ability to effectively monetize that inventory. For example, within Criteo Retail Media, we access inventory and first-party data from ecommerce sites that are generally not available to traditional advertising demand. We believe this inventory and data from ecommerce retailers is particularly valuable for consumer brands looking to advertise their products in a multi-brand retail environment. In addition, in Japan, we have entered into a strategic relationship with Yahoo! Japan, that grants us preferred access to its advertising inventory for delivering personalized display ads.
We price and buy inventory in real time and typically do not pre-buy any impression. In addition, in some instances, we may commit to buying minimum volumes of impressions to certain publishers partners for our Marketing Solutions and Retail Media solutions. Across both our direct publisher relationships and inventory purchasing done on RTB exchanges, we leverage Criteo AI Engine's ability to quickly and accurately value available advertising inventory, and utilize that information to bid for inventory on a programmatic, automated basis.
Alongside our existing technologies to integrate directly with publishers, we have developed Criteo Direct Bidder, our header-bidding technology. Header-bidding allows publishers to make their inventory simultaneously available for public auction to several competitive bidders, including RTB exchanges. Thanks to our large scale, Criteo Direct Bidder allows us to connect directly to the ad server of publishers in situations where publishers use header bidding to monetize their inventory, allowing us, among other advantages, to bypass RTB exchanges in the bidding process and to save publishers the take-rate RTBs would typically charge them. As a result, Criteo Direct Bidder helps publishers increase the average monetization of their inventory sold through Criteo Direct Bidder, relative to our overall spend through all channels. Using Criteo Direct Bidder, we were connected to approximately 5,000 large publishers globally, on both web and apps, as of December 31, 2020, including: IBM Watson Advertising, Globo, OLX, NBC, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Leboncoin, Daily Mail, Viber, Axel Springer's websites, Marktplaats, M6, AJA Japan and EstSoft.
We take a variety of brand safety measures to ensure that the brand equity of our clients is preserved at all possible times. These measures include determining that each publisher's inventory meets our content requirements and those of our clients to ensure that their ads are not shown in inappropriate content categories, such as, for example, adult, violent or sensitive political content. In addition, we are an active member of the Coalition for Better Ads, supported by Google, and are compliant with their recommendations for the most user-friendly advertising formats. In 2020, we entered into a partnership with Oracle Data Cloud to strengthen our existing brand safety offering. Criteo’s AI Engine is now integrated with Oracle Contextual Intelligence, a solution providing real-time content review and pre-bid classification to clients across brand-suitable categories.
For Criteo Marketing Solutions, we typically purchase inventory programmatically on a CPM basis from our direct publisher partners and RTBs, through standard terms and conditions for the purchase of advertising inventory. This means that inventory purchased for Criteo Marketing Solutions is paid to the publisher irrespective of whether the user engages, in whatever form, with the advertisement delivered on that publisher's digital property. Pursuant to such arrangements, we purchase impressions for users that Criteo recognizes on these publishers' digital properties. Such arrangements are cancellable upon short notice and without penalty.
For Criteo Retail Media, we may pay for the inventory of retailer partners based on a revenue share, effectively paying the retailer a portion of the click-based revenue generated by customers clicking on the ads displaying the products of our consumer brand clients. This means that, with these Criteo Retail Media solutions, retailer publishers only get paid if a user effectively clicks on the ad that is displayed on their site. We may also buy inventory on a CPM basis or do not incur any media cost at all when we provide retailers with access to our Retail Media Platform for them to sell their inventory directly to consumer brands.
We believe that our ability to efficiently access, value and monetize inventory at scale results in a deeply liquid marketplace for both buyers and sellers of advertising, allowing us to deliver effective ads at the right price for our clients, even as the size and complexity of the marketing campaign increases.
Industry Trends
The ability to engage customers across the various steps of the consumer journey is critical for businesses in the broader commerce and consumer brand sectors, who often dedicate a significant portion of their cost base to developing such an ability. We believe the following trends are relevant in assessing our current and future business.
E-commerce is Booming: According to GroupM, global retail ecommerce (excluding food and delivery services) amounted to close to $4 trillion in 2020 or 17% of global retail sales in 2020 and is forecast to represent 25% by 2024, or $7 trillion. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the boom of ecommerce, and we saw brands and retailers rapidly transform their ecommerce presence, and gain share from ecommerce giants. With lockdown restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. online product searches on retailers' websites in the open Internet increased by 21 percentage points to close to 30% of total shares, while the share of searches on Amazon properties declined from 66% to 43%1. As a result of new habits developed by consumers, and as the pandemic has brought in older and less tech-savvy demographics to online shopping, we expect this trend to continue. 81% of online buyers who tried a new retailer indicate that they expect to continue to shop with them in the future2, creating a shift in brand loyalty towards open Internet retailers, which today represent approximately 40% of global e-commerce sales3.
Trade Marketing Shifts to Digital: Taking advantage of this surge in ecommerce, brands accelerate the shift of their trade marketing budgets to online. We believe digital trade marketing already exceeded $23 billion in global spend in 2020, after growing by an average 82% each year since 2016.
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1 Question Asked: “When you want to buy a new product online, where do you typically start your search?”
1,2 Sources: Activate Consumer Tech & Media Viewpoint Study April 14, 2020 (n = 2,027), ComScore, Freedive, Marketing Dive, Activate analysis
3 Source: 451 Research, China Internet Watch, Company filings, Company press releases, Company sites, Digital Commerce 360, eMarketer, Forbes, GeekWire, Internet Retailer, Marketplace Pulse, Retail Dive, TechCrunch, UBS, Activate analysis
Brands, Retailers and Publishers Increasingly Depend on AdTech Partners: In today's highly competitive environment, commerce companies and consumer brands increasingly focus on profitably reaching, engaging and converting consumers. In addition, we believe they increasingly look at diversifying their significant reliance on walled-garden digital advertising partners. On the other hand, consumers' shopping journeys have become increasingly fragmented between various websites, apps, devices, and physical stores. Consumers' time is increasingly spent online, creating a new environment for advertising, such as Connected TV. The ability for publishers, retailers, brands and agencies to identify users, given restrictions in some environments, to create and monetize audiences, and to drive sales and customer loyalty, today relies on having the right technology partner, able to activate the right data in an efficient way and to measure results in a transparent way across channels.
Addressable Market
We estimate that the total addressable market for the marketing and monetization services provides by our Commerce Media Platform on the open Internet represents $61 billion in ad spend or revenue opportunity for us.
Our Competitive Strengths
We believe the Commerce Media Platform is transforming digital marketing and media monetization for our ecommerce and brand clients. We enable brands' and retailers' growth by making their marketing and monetization efforts more efficient, effective and measurable by driving trusted and impactful business outcomes across multiple marketing goals. We believe the following competitive strengths have enabled us and will continue to enable us to capture a significant share of the digital marketing and monetization opportunity:
Shopper Data. Our Shopper Graph leverages massive amounts of granular and first-party data focused on commerce and shopping behaviors, through data sharing among our clients. With an estimated 2.5 billion unique users in our Identity Graph, we are building one of the largest data sets focused on shoppers, with a scope and scale among the largest in the industry. Over $2.5 billion worth of daily transactions across 4 billion product SKUs from 3,500 product categories are ingested by our graph, which allows us to analyze about 75 million daily buyer journeys. Our Interest Map offers a comprehensive, accurate and non-identifying shopper profile for all consumers on whom we have collected information, and is the foundation for the development of compelling advertising solutions - existing and new - that help our clients span the full marketing funnel, across brand awareness, audience targeting and conversion marketing goals. Importantly, we believe the guiding principles of Criteo Shopper Graph - in particular its open, transparent and fair approach to sharing and leveraging data within collectives -, highly differentiate it from the proprietary data management approaches of most of the large Internet platforms and Walled Gardens, and therefore represent attractive guarantees for marketers willing to protect and control their data.
Reach, Scale and Network Effects. Our large and loyal base of clients and first-party publisher partners provide for stability and positive network effects. As of December 31, 2020, we had over 21,000 clients, including some of the largest ecommerce companies in the world, and our client retention rate was approximately 90%. In parallel, as of the same date, we were working with approximately 5,000 direct publishers on both web and apps, in addition to all of our large global and local RTB partners. These direct integrations on both the demand and supply sides ensure access to data in privacy-compliant ways, shielding from the consequences of third-party cookie limitations. As we continue to grow our client base, we continue to grow the number of users who interact with our ads, allowing us to benefit from greater scale when buying inventory from publisher partners, many of whom have granted us preferred access to portions of their advertising inventory. We believe this large and loyal base of clients and publisher partners provides for stability in our business, as well as for significant opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell our product portfolio within our large existing client base. As clients spend more with us and we attract more publisher inventory and deliver more ads, our data assets grow, enabling us to deliver even more precisely targeted and personalized ads and generate a greater impact for our clients. As a result, we believe more commerce and consumer brand clients may use our offering and potentially increase their spend with us. This, in turn, may enable us to increase monetization for publishers and retailers, further expanding our publisher network and enhancing our ability to drive performance for all clients. This cycle of self-reinforcing network effects, based on our large scale and loyal base of clients and publishers, may continue to fuel our business in the future.
Retail Media. Our Retail Media offering provides unique opportunities to both brands and retailers. Our Retail Media value proposition, helping retailers to monetize their data and inventory with brands, is quite unique in the marketplace outside of Amazon. It provides opportunities for brands to advertise on retailers' on-site media, while creating a new source of profitable revenues for large retailers. Criteo's Retail Media Platform is the industry's first self-service and transparent software providing an easy way for brands to manage their online marketing budgets to drive immediate, measurable commerce outcome directly where shoppers search and buy their products. We enable brands, agencies, and multiple retailers to buy and sell retail media using a common platform, thus benefiting
from meaningful network effects due to our unique position as the technology supporting a multi-retailer ecosystem, whereas most competitors in the retail media space focus on supporting siloed retailer Walled Gardens. Brands and their agencies use this platform to access unique inventory at meaningful scale, and retailers get access to brand marketing budgets at a scale they would not be able to access on their own. This creates a network effect where the value for customers only increases as more brand and retailer participants join the ecosystem. In addition, our deep technical integrations with retailers, requiring meaningful engineering investment from the retailer, make us very sticky with them and enable us to offer preferred or exclusive inventory to brands and agencies, as well as a superior shopper experience to consumers. We primarily use a server-side technology to integrate our platform with retailer sites and apps. In addition, we require multi-year commitments and product ads exclusivity as part of our standard retailer services agreements. Both our unique inventory access and increasingly deep technical integrations with other advertising technology and reporting platforms provide defensible relationships with brands and agencies. For example, our recently launched API partner program embeds our technology into ad platforms that brands and agencies already use to buy search, social, and other large platforms' ad inventory. Additionally, with many major brand and agency clients, we directly connect our reporting data directly into client analytics and reporting platforms via our APIs.
Superior Insights and Measurement. We believe we have superior capabilities for Commerce Insights and measurement. Our technology provides our clients with the unique ability to measure against product sales at the product SKU level. For example, our commerce insights can bring together organic shopping data with paid media metrics for brands.
Scaled Global Presence. We do business in 104 countries and have a direct operating presence through 29 offices in 19 countries. We have achieved this global presence by replicating and scaling our effective business model across all geographic markets. Large businesses are increasingly seeking global advertising partners able to provide comprehensive offerings that are effective across multiple geographies. We believe we are able to meet this demand by leveraging our scalable AI technology and global network of relationships and are well positioned to serve our clients in virtually every market in which they seek to drive trusted, impactful and measurable business results.
Strong Financial Model. Our profitable, cash-generative financial model allows us to invest for growth while maintaining healthy profitability. Our company has a sustainable, robust profitability margin. In the year ended December 31, 2020, our operating profit margin was 5.3% of revenue and our Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of Revenue ex-TAC was 30.4%. In addition, we manage our expense base in a disciplined way and focus on driving productivity through operational excellence and automation across the organization. Productivity and efficiency gains enable us to reinvest into strategic growth areas, while maintaining healthy profitability. Our financial model generates a sustainable and significant amount of free cash flow. For the year ended December 31, 2020, we generated free cash flow of $120 million, despite the negative economic conditions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, our company maintains a comfortable cash position, standing at $488 million at the end of fiscal 2020, which, together with marketable securities and our Revolving Credit Facility, provides for financial liquidity of about $960 million, offering ample flexibility. We believe having a profitable, cash-generative financial model providing for financial flexibility and allowing for an investment capacity is a competitive advantage, in particular compared to multiple sub-scale companies in our industry.
Our Business & Growth Opportunities
Our mission is to power the world's marketers, brands, retailers, publishers, content creators and agencies with trusted and impactful advertising. We enable brand and retailers' business growth by providing best-in-class marketing and monetization services and driving measurable business outcomes at scale through Commerce Media. As described throughout, our vision is to build the world's leading Commerce Media Platform for brands, agencies and retailers.
We are currently strengthening the Criteo Commerce Media Platform and expanding our business through several opportunities, both within our existing suite of solutions and in new areas, always focused on driving trusted and impactful business outcomes for clients. One key priority is to drive sustainable and profitable growth for our business. This involves increasing our focus even more on the fast-growing ecommerce space and broadening our value proposition to cover all Commerce Media marketing goals in a holistic way, while always driving measurable business outcomes to clients, including sales. In parallel, we are focused on investing into our strategic growth priorities and self-funding for these investments by driving efficiency across the organization. The core elements of our business strategy include:
Strengthen the Core. We intend to strengthen our retargeting product, aimed at converting our clients' customers in both the web and apps. We intend to achieve this by strengthening our strong differentiators, including around Criteo Shopper Graph and user identification thanks to our first-party media network, continuously improving Criteo's AI Engine technology and the strong performance of our core product in all environments, providing more transparency on our value proposition, and adding new clients and publishers. We are also adding multiple capabilities, like third-party measurement, through industry partnerships to enhance our core solution.
Over the past three years, the growth of retargeting has been slowing down and turned negative since 2019. Over the period, cookie restrictions on several browsers have had a significant negative impact on our business on the web, including on retargeting. The COVID-19 pandemic was an additional headwind to this business in 2020, impacting in particular our clients in the Travel and Classifieds verticals, as well as some large brick-and-mortar retailers. Beyond these headwinds, and while retargeting continued to grow in the midmarket, the softness has been more pronounced with large customers.
We are taking several measures to stabilize our retargeting business over time, including:
•Maintaining a high level of preferred direct publishers relationships, allowing us to grow our first-party media network and reduce our exposure to third-party cookies. We expect to continue to expand our first-party media network, sheltered from cookie restriction, by increasing the deployment of Criteo Direct Bidder with large publishers, both on the web and on mobile apps;
•Encouraging our clients and publishers to adopt Unified ID 2.0, an open-sourced identity framework dedicated to digital advertising and respectful of users' privacy, providing a replacement to third-party cookie bearing users' consent;
•Growing our capabilities as a differentiated Demand-Side-Platform specifically for commerce, including for upper-funnel marketing on top of our strengths in lower funnel, offering more flexibility throughout the stack, and adjusting our pricing model to increase the transparency of our value proposition for our core product;
•Further expanding our global client base across customer categories. We have a track-record of entering new geographic markets, adding new clients successfully and rapidly gaining commercial traction. We intend to continue to grow our client base, both in the large customer and midmarket categories. In particular, we continue to build and roll out our self-registration sales channel for smaller clients, and to expand our partnerships with Ecommerce Platform Partners, to increase our penetration of the large opportunity we see in the low end of the midmarket. We believe opportunities also remain to grow our business with large customers in markets where we already operate, including in Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan; and
•Providing even more transparency and control to advertisers and their agencies through our self-service platform.
Expand Our Product Portfolio. We intend to continue to leverage our existing assets to strengthen our business outside of retargeting, continue to build and expand our suite of fast-growing marketing and monetization solutions, and build further competitive moats around our core assets.
In fiscal year 2020, our new solutions outside of retargeting already represented close to 20% of our total business, as measured on a Revenue ex-TAC basis, including 24% in the fourth quarter 2020. We are investing in the growth of these new solutions and expect them to represent close to 30% of our overall business in 2021.
Our new solutions are focused on the following areas:
•Retail Media: We believe Criteo Retail Media is a particularly differentiated offering in the marketplace and offers significant growth opportunities for us. We will continue to roll out the Retail Media Platform to new markets and move all our Retail Media campaigns to the platform, making the digital stores of large retailers a key advertising channel to generate high gross margin revenue from consumer brands. In addition, we intend to grow the number of retailers we work with in the U.S. and Europe, deepen our share of wallets with existing retailer and brand customers, accelerate our geographic expansion in Europe and enter new markets in the APAC region, grow our offsite advertising capabilities for brands across our premium publisher network on the open Internet, potentially enter Retail Media for retailer marketplaces, bring more commerce insights to brands as a key value-added service and provide brands with an integrated view on the Retail Media spend on Walled Garden retailers
•Brand awareness: We are extending our offering to allow for more brand awareness campaigns for both brands and retailers on the open Internet, including in video formats and through the Connected TV channel.
•Audience Targeting: We already address customer acquisition as a marketing objective and intend to continue growing it, along with similar use cases building on audiences based on our shopper data. In addition, we are investing resources in enhancing the efficacy and impact of cohort advertising on our ecosystem and help shape the end solution which will replace third-party cookies in the Google Chrome browser environment.
•Contextual advertising: We are also developing new solutions for contextual advertising to accompany our clients in the fast-changing identity landscape. We believe our approach to contextual advertising is different from what currently exists in the market as we are using first-party data to add a commerce “signature” to the content consumers are reading and watching across the Open Internet. This enables us to go beyond traditional contextual inferences of interest and intent to indicate what combinations of content are actually driving purchases.
•Omnichannel: Within Criteo Marketing Solutions, we also intend to grow our Omnichannel capabilities. A large portion of our commerce client base operates physical stores and still generates a significant percentage of their sales from these stores. While retailers extract massive amounts of sales data from their physical stores, they often lack the sophisticated technology necessary to activate this dataset for sales generation, both online and offline. As a result, retailers are increasingly interested in omnichannel advertising solutions that allow them to target their customers everywhere and bridge the gap between online and offline. Omnichannel is one of the fastest-growing opportunities for Criteo: in fiscal year 2020, our Omnichannel business grew close to 120% on a Revenue ex-TAC basis. We intend to further expand our solutions for omnichannel advertising, including by feeding our clients' offline CRM data into our Identity Graph, in order to further grow the match rate of offline consumers with their online profile.
Explore Strategic Game Changers. We look for opportunities to extend and accelerate the growth of our business by exploring and bringing strategic assets and capabilities through partnerships and M&A, in addition to executing organically.
For example, in 2020, we entered and expanded a number of partnerships.
•We joined the open-source Unified ID 2.0 initiative, a new approach to identity that represents an upgrade to third-party cookies, preserves the value exchange of advertising on the open Internet, while providing improved consumer controls;
•We launched the Criteo Partners program, helping our ad agency channel partners, to better utilize Criteo Marketing Solutions and shopper data, in particular by accessing training and certification programs;
•We launched the Criteo Product Ads module in ecommerce platform PrestaShop, allowing PrestaShop merchants to attract users to visit their online stores and buy from them. The Criteo Product Ads module enhances customer experience through relevant product ads while helping merchants automate their efforts to attract new visitors for their site and encourage them to complete their purchase;
•We integrated Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings (DAR), the industry standard for digital ad measurement, and Digital Brand Effect to help advertisers better measure and optimize brand lift metrics with Criteo solutions;
•And we partnered with Oracle Data Cloud to strengthen our existing brand safety offering. Criteo’s AI Engine is now integrated with Oracle Contextual Intelligence, a solution providing real-time content review and pre-bid classification to clients across brand-suitable categories.
In the future, we intend to continue to collaborate with existing and new industry partners to extend the capabilities and functionalities of the Criteo Commerce Media Platform, beyond what we currently offer on a standalone basis. This may include partnerships with other Demand-Side-Platforms or other ecosystem players to extend our customer reach to new client categories or agencies. In addition, we may look at further expanding our access to video inventory, both in the Web and mobile apps, as well as extending our access to Connected TV inventory on a much larger scale.
We continue to evaluate and execute on M&A transactions, with a critical assessment on technologies and businesses that have the potential to enhance, complement or expand our strategic capabilities, including our technology, our marketing and monetization solutions, go-to-market, or R&D team. We target acquisitions that, over time, can be efficiently integrated into the Criteo Commerce Media Platform, including into our AI technology, global operations and company culture, while preserving the quality and performance of our offering. Key criteria for acquisitions include demonstrated revenue traction and a proven value proposition for clients and partners and are easy to integrate. Our entrepreneurial culture, growth opportunity, global scale, financial profile, strong brand and market position enable us to be an attractive acquirer.
Drive Technology and Operations Excellence. We take a Portfolio Management approach to managing our business, organization and expense base: right-sizing or streamlining the parts of the business with declining revenue in order to enable investments on the growing parts of our business into technology innovation and other strategic priorities. We intend to continue to invest in the growth of our business, while driving productivity and efficiency gains through operational excellence across the company and maintaining healthy profitability. We believe these investments will feed the long-term sustainable growth of our business.
We intend to continue to make investments in our technology innovation and new product development, including in Retail Media, our first-party media network, Contextual advertising, video, Connected TV and Commerce Insights. We expect these investments to further strengthen our Commerce Media Platform. Driving operational excellence through the company to self-fund for our investments involves increasing automation and the scalability of our operations, as well as having a responsible and effective approach to expense management, across all teams, functions and global offices.
The below graphic illustrates where Criteo stands in 2020 in executing on its strategy to build the Commerce Media Platform.
Strategic Relationship with Yahoo! Japan
In August 2012, we entered into a strategic relationship with Yahoo! Japan, a leading provider of advertising inventory in Japan, which grants us preferred access to their performance-based display inventory. In connection with this strategic relationship, Yahoo! Japan invested in our subsidiary, Criteo K.K. We retain 66% ownership of Criteo K.K. and Yahoo! Japan holds a 34% ownership. Yahoo! Japan has the right to require us to buy back its interest upon the occurrence of certain events (such as bankruptcy or breach of obligations), and we have the right to require them to sell their interest in Criteo K.K. under specified circumstances, such as a termination of the commercial relationship.
This strategic relationship may be terminated by either party for material breach or other customary events. The term of this strategic relationship was renewed to August 2021 and will continue to renew automatically thereafter for one-year terms if neither party provides advance written notice of its intent not to renew within a specified period of time.
Infrastructure
Our ability to execute depends on our highly sophisticated global technology software and hardware infrastructure. As of December 31, 2020, our global infrastructure included over 49,000 servers through a global network of nine data centers, including two Hadoop clusters, that comprise to 10,350 servers hosting 200,000 processing cores, providing a storage capacity exceeding 750,000 terabytes and 2,000 terabytes of random-access memory. Our global infrastructure is divided into three independent geographic zones in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA. In each of these geographic zones, our services are delivered through data centers that support this particular zone. We generally rely on more than one data center in any given zone. Within large zones, the data centers are strategically placed to be close to our clients, publishers and users. This provides the benefit of minimizing the impact of network latency within a particular zone, especially for time-constrained services such as RTB. In addition, we replicate data across multiple data centers to maximize availability and performance. We also generally seek to distribute workload across multiple locations to avoid overloads in our systems and increase reliability through redundancy.
Within each data center, computing power is provided by horizontal build-outs of commodity servers arranged in multiple, highly redundant pools. Some of these pools are dedicated to handling incoming traffic and delivering ads while others are devoted to the data analytics involved in creating these ads. In particular, we use software specifically designed for processing large data sets, such as Hadoop, to run offline data analyzes and to train our AI and Machine Learning models. The results are then fed back to refresh and improve our prediction and recommendation algorithms.
We use multiple-layered security controls to protect Criteo AI Engine and our data assets, including hardware- and software-based access controls for our source code and production systems, segregated networks for different components of our production systems and centralized production systems management.
Our Clients
Our client base for Criteo Marketing Solutions consists primarily of companies in the retail, travel and classifieds verticals, which we refer to as "commerce companies" or "commerce clients", and includes some of the largest and most sophisticated commerce companies in the world. These companies range from large, global, diversified commerce companies to mid-sized regional companies. With Criteo Retail Media, we also serve consumer brand manufacturers, which we refer to as "consumer brands" or "consumer brand clients". As of December 31, 2020, we had more than 21,000 clients (both commerce and consumer brand clients combined).
In 2020, approximately 68% of our client relationships were held directly with the client, whereby there was no advertising agency or any other third-party involved in our client relationship on the Criteo Marketing Solutions side of the business, whereas 49% of our Criteo Retail Media revenue comes from agencies.
We believe our business is not substantially dependent on any particular client or group of clients. In 2020, 2019 and 2018, our largest client represented 3.5%, 2.8% and 2.0% of our revenue, respectively, and in 2020, 2019 and 2018, our largest 10 clients represented 13.7%, 11.4% and 11.7% of our revenue in the aggregate, respectively.
There is no group of customers under common control or customers that are affiliates of each other constituting an aggregate amount equal to 10% or more of our consolidated revenues, the loss of which would have a material adverse effect on Criteo.
We define a client to be a unique party from whom we have received a signed contract or an insertion order and for whom we have delivered an advertisement or monetized an advertising inventory during the previous 12 months. We count specific brands or divisions within the same business as distinct clients so long as those entities have separately signed insertion orders with us. In the case of some solutions within Criteo Retail Media, we count the parent company of the brands as an individual client, even if several distinct brands pertaining to the same parent company have signed separate contracts or insertion orders with us. On the other hand, we count a client who runs campaigns in multiple geographies as a single client, even though multiple insertion orders may be involved. When the insertion order is with an advertising agency, we generally consider the client on whose behalf the advertising campaign is conducted as the “client” for purposes of this calculation. In the event a client has its advertising spend with us managed by multiple agencies, that client is counted as a single client.
Our client base is composed of two client categories: the large customer category and the midmarket category. We define large customers as the top-50 or the top-100 commerce websites per vertical in a given geographic market, depending on the depth of that market, based on the number of monthly unique visitors as measured by comScore or other third-party providers of such information. We define a midmarket client as any client outside of the large customer category per vertical in a given geographic market, depending on the depth of that market, and with a certain minimum threshold number of unique monthly visitors to their digital property, as measured by comScore or other third-party providers of such information. This minimum threshold varies by market, but is generally around 40,000 unique monthly visitors for our more developed markets. The delineation between the large customer and midmarket categories is fluid and the Company may decide, from time to time, to move some clients from one category to another. We may segment our client base in different ways in the future and adjust our go-to-market strategy accordingly.
Research and Development
We invest substantial resources in research and development to conduct fundamental research on artificial intelligence, machine-learning models, enhance the algorithms in Criteo AI Engine, develop new features and solutions, conduct quality assurance testing, improve our core technology and enhance our technology infrastructure. Our engineering group is primarily located in research and development centers in Paris, France, Grenoble, France and Ann Arbor, Michigan. We expect to continue to expand capabilities of our technology in the future and to invest significantly in continued research and development and new solutions efforts. We had 624 employees primarily engaged Research and Development and Product as of December 31, 2020. Research and development expenses, including expenses related to the Product group, totaled $132.5 million, $172.6 million and $179.3 million for 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Intellectual Property
Our intellectual property rights are a key component of our success. We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish, maintain and protect our proprietary rights. We generally require employees, consultants, clients, publishers, suppliers and partners to execute confidentiality agreements with us that restrict the disclosure of our intellectual property. We also generally require our employees and consultants to execute invention assignment agreements with us that protect our intellectual property rights.
Intellectual property laws, together with our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, provide only limited protection, and any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated, circumvented, infringed or misappropriated. The laws of certain countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of France and the United States and, therefore, in certain jurisdictions, we may be unable to protect our proprietary technology.
Agreements with our employees and consultants may also be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies to address any breach. Further, to the extent that our employees or consultants use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights to know-how and inventions relating thereto or resulting therefrom. Finally, our trade secrets may otherwise become known or be independently discovered by competitors and unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of the Criteo Commerce Media Platform or obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary.
As of December 31, 2020, we held sixteen patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, one patent issued by the French Patent Office, one patent issued by the European Patent Office, one patent issued by the Japan Patent Office and one patent issued by the Korean Intellectual Property Office, and had filed 10 non-provisional U.S. patent applications and four European patent applications. We also own and use registered and unregistered trademarks on or in connection with our products and services in numerous jurisdictions. In addition, we have also registered numerous internet domain names.
Our industry is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents and frequent claims and related litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. In particular, leading companies in the technology industry have extensive patent portfolios. From time to time, third parties, including certain of these leading companies, have asserted and may assert patent, copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights against us, our clients or our publishers. Litigation and associated expenses may be necessary to enforce our proprietary rights.
Privacy, Data Protection and Content Control
Legal and Regulatory
Privacy and data protection laws play a significant role in our business. The regulatory environment for the collection and use of consumer data by advertising networks, advertisers and publishers is frequently evolving in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. The United States and foreign governments have enacted, considered or are considering legislation or regulations that could significantly restrict industry participants’ ability to collect, augment, analyze, use and share personal data, such as by regulating the level of consumer notice and consent required before a company can utilize cookies or other tracking technologies.
In the United States, at both the federal and state level, there are laws that govern activities such as the collection and use of data by companies like us. At the federal level, online advertising activities in the United States have primarily been subject to regulation by the Federal Trade Commission, or the FTC, which has regularly relied upon Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, or Section 5, to enforce against unfair and deceptive trade practices, including alleged violations of consumer privacy interests. Various states have also enacted legislation that governs these practices. For example, on September 27, 2013, the governor of California signed into law AB 370, an amendment to the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, or CalOPPA. This amendment requires that we disclose in our privacy policy how we respond to web browser "do not track" signals. Our current privacy policy discloses that we do not respond to web browser "do not track" signals but that we do respond to opt-out requests made through our proprietary opt-out button or through industry opt-out platforms (namely Network Advertising Initiative and Digital Advertising Alliance). However, the US privacy law framework may be subject to significant evolutions in the near future both at a federal and at a state level. At a federal level, lawmakers are currently considering the possibility of adopting a federal privacy law. In 2018, the State of California adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. The CCPA has been characterized as the first “GDPR-like” privacy statute to be enacted in the U.S. because its scope, and a number of the key provisions, resemble the GDPR. The CCPA establishes a new privacy framework for covered businesses by, among other requirements, creating an expanded definition of personal information, establishing new data privacy rights for consumers in the State of California, imposing special rules on the collection of personal data from minors, creating new notice obligations and new limits on the sale of personal information, and creating a new and potentially severe statutory damages framework for violations of the CCPA and for businesses that fail to implement reasonable security procedures and practices to prevent data breaches. As currently enacted, we and partners in our industry have been required to comply with these requirements since January 1, 2020, when the CCPA became effective. As with GDPR, the advertising technology marketplace may have to adapt to operating under the CCPA where it applies. Our advertising or publishing partners may impose new CCPA restrictions with which we must adapt and comply. This past November, the voters in California voted to pass the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), an Act that both amends and expands the scope of the CCPA. The CPRA will become effective on January 1, 2023, with a look back period to January 1, 2022. The CPRA creates new criteria by which businesses can be regulated, expands the definition of “personal information” to more closely match Europe, a new audit requirement, and the creation of an agency to oversee enforcement of the CPRA. The CPRA also explicitly provides an opt-out right for cross-contextual behavioral advertising. We cannot predict the timing or outcome of this adaptation or the effect on our business. Adapting our business to the CCPA and the forthcoming new requirements under the CPRA could involve substantial resources and expense, and may cause us to divert resources from other aspects of our business, all of which may adversely affect our business.
In addition, the Criteo Commerce Media Platform reaches users throughout the world, including in Europe, Australia, Canada, South America and Asia-Pacific. As a result, some of our activities may also be subject to the laws of foreign jurisdictions. In particular, data protection laws in Europe can be more restrictive regarding the collection and use of data than those in U.S. jurisdictions.
In the European Union, the two main pillars of the data protection legal framework are the E-Privacy Directive (Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was implemented in May 2018.
The E-Privacy Directive directs EU member states to ensure that accessing information on an Internet user’s computer, such as through a cookie and other similar technologies, is allowed only if the Internet user has been informed about such access and given his or her consent. A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that such consent must be reflected by an affirmative act of the user, and European regulators are increasingly agitating for more robust forms of consent. These developments may result in decreased reliance on implied consent mechanisms that have been used to meet requirements of the E-Privacy Directive in some markets. A replacement for the E-Privacy Directive is currently under discussion by EU member states to complement and bring electronic communication services in line with the GDPR and force a harmonized approach across EU member states. It is possible that the proposed e-privacy regulation could further raise the bar for the use of cookies and the fines and penalties for breach could be significant.
In December 2016, the EU institutions reached an agreement on the GDPR. The GDPR has updated principles drawn from the 1995 Data Protection Directive while imposing new levels of sanctions for non-compliance. The EU data protection authorities have also been granted power to impose administrative fines of up to a maximum of €20 million or 4% of the data controller's or data processor's global turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher.
We believe that the regulation has no material impact on our business or the way our technologies operate. However, GDPR is still a relatively recent regulation with no established case law. Therefore interpretations of the GDPR may vary, especially with respect to the articulation between GDPR (lex generali) and E-Privacy Directive (lex speciali) and the conditions for the collection of a valid "cookie" consent, and thus there can be no assurance that this will not have any particular impact on our business, technologies or practices in the medium to long term.
On October 1, 2020, the French data protection authority (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés, or CNIL) issued the final version of its guidelines on the use of cookies and other trackers and its final recommendations on modalities for obtaining users’ consent to store or read non-essential cookies and similar technologies on their devices. The recommendations provide that, when required, consent must be indicated by a clear and positive action of the data subject, such as by clicking on an “accept all” button on the first layer of the consent management platform. CNIL also noted that it should be as easy to refuse consent to the use of cookies as it is to accept consent, and a “refuse all” button should be present on the first layer of the consent management platform, equivalent to the “accept all” button in terms of size, position and color. Further, the ability to withdraw consent must be readily available at all times. The recommendations are not binding, nor are they intended to be prescriptive and exhaustive. Companies have until March 2021 to ensure compliance with these guidelines.
As we continue to expand into other foreign jurisdictions, we may be subject to additional laws and regulations that may affect how we conduct business.
Self-Regulation
In addition to complying with extensive government regulations, we voluntarily and actively participate in several trade associations and industry self-regulatory groups that promulgate best practices or codes of conduct relating to targeted advertising. For example, the Internet Advertising Bureau EU & US, the Network Advertising Initiative, the European Digital Advertising Alliance and the Digital Advertising Alliance have developed and implemented guidance for companies to provide notice and choice to users regarding targeted advertising.
In addition to complying with such guidance, we provide consumers with notice about our use of cookies and our collection and use of data in connection with the delivery of targeted advertising, and allow them to opt out from the use of such data for the delivery of targeted advertising. In an effort to harmonize the industry’s approach to internet-based advertising, these programs facilitate a user's ability to disable services of integrated providers, but also educate users on the potential benefits of online advertising, including access to free content and display of more relevant advertisements to them. The rules and policies of the self-regulatory programs that we participate in are updated from time to time and may impose additional restrictions upon us in the future.
Criteo became one of the first companies to broadly include an "Ad Choices" link in all the advertisements we deliver, which gives users access to clear, transparent, detailed and user-friendly information about personalized advertisements and the data practices associated with the advertisements they receive. In addition, we provide consumers with an easy-to-use and easy-to-access mechanism to control their advertising experience and opt out of receiving targeted advertisements we deliver.
We believe that this transparent consumer-centric approach to privacy empowers consumers to make better-informed decisions about our use of their data. We also actively encourage our clients and publishers to provide information to consumers about our collection and use of data relating to the advertisements we deliver and monitor.
Content Control and Brand Safety
To protect against unlawful advertiser and publisher content, we include restrictions on content in our terms and conditions. We also take a large variety of brand safety measures to ensure that the brand equity of our clients is preserved as much as possible. These measures include determining that each publisher's inventory meets our content requirements and those of our clients to ensure that their display advertisements are not shown in inappropriate content categories. For that purpose, we use numerous internal systems and processes to filter out inventory in real time, including the list of suspect IP addresses from the Trustworthy Accountability Group and the lists of invalid traffic from several specialized external vendors. With respect to our inventory purchased through RTB exchanges, we utilize a mix of proprietary methodologies as well as third-party software to verify that inventory where the advertisement placement is shown conforms to our advertising guidelines and the content expectations and branding guidelines of our clients.
Government Regulation
In addition to the laws and regulations governing privacy and data protection described above, we are subject to numerous domestic and foreign laws and regulations covering a wide variety of subject matters. New laws and regulations (or new interpretations of existing laws and regulations) may also impact our business. The costs of compliance with these laws and regulations are high and are likely to increase in the future and any failure on our part to comply with these laws may subject us to significant liabilities and other penalties.
Competition
We compete in the broader market for digital marketing and media monetization, primarily through Display Advertising. Our market is complex, rapidly evolving, highly competitive, still fragmented and yet rapidly consolidating. We face significant competition in this market, which we expect to intensify in the future, partially as a result of potential new entrants in our market, including but not limited to large well-established internet publishers and players, in particular as we continue to expand the breadth of the Criteo Commerce Media Platform. We currently compete with large, well-established companies, such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, independent Demand-Side Platforms ("DSPs"), such as The Trade Desk or MediaMath, as well as smaller, privately held companies. Potential competition could emerge from large enterprise marketing platforms, like Adobe Systems Inc. ("Adobe"), Oracle Corporation ("Oracle") and Salesforce.com, Inc. ("Salesforce"), or public and private companies specialized in the Marketing Technology ("MarTech") space. In addition, web browsers, and desktop and mobile operating systems developed by large software companies like Google and Apple Inc. ("Apple") can have a significant influence and impact on the way we operate. We believe the principal competitive factors in our industry include:
•access to granular commerce data on a large scale;
•technology-based ability to activate data, in particular commerce data, for multiple digital marketing and media monetization goals, along the entire consumer journey;
•technology-based ability to generate advertisers' desired business outcomes, including, but not limited to, high return on advertising spend at scale;
•relevance and breadth of solutions to address numerous digital marketing and media monetization goals;
•breadth and depth of consumer reach, including across the open Internet;
•marketer and publisher control over the objectives, parameters and performance of their advertising campaigns through modular, flexible and easy-to-use tools and services available on a self-service interface;
•measurability of the advertising spend performance, based on clear and transparent measurement metrics;
•completeness and effectiveness of solutions across digital devices, commerce and advertising environments, platforms and operating systems, advertising channels and publisher environments;
•transparency of pricing models, aligning with the value propositions provided to marketers;
•openness, transparency, security and fairness of data sharing and data management practices;
•client trust;
•global presence;
•client service and detailed, transparent client reporting available on a self-service basis;
•commitment to data protection and user privacy; and
•ease of use.
We believe that we are well positioned with respect to all of these factors and expect to continue to capture an increasing share of digital marketing and media monetization budgets worldwide.
Seasonality
Our client base consists primarily of commerce of companies in the Retail, Travel and Classifieds industries, which we refer to as “commerce companies” or “commerce clients”. In the digital Retail industry and the consumer brand verticals in particular, many businesses devote the largest portion of their advertising spend to the fourth quarter of the calendar year, to coincide with increased holiday spending by consumers. With respect to Criteo Retail Media, the concentration of advertising spend in the fourth quarter of the calendar year may be particularly pronounced. Our Retail clients typically conduct fewer advertising campaigns in the first and second quarters than they do in other quarters, while our Travel clients typically increase their travel campaigns in the first and third quarters and conduct fewer advertising campaigns in the second quarter. As a result, our revenue tends to be seasonal in nature. If the seasonal fluctuations become more pronounced, our operating cash flows could fluctuate materially from period to period.
Employees and Human Capital Management
As of December 31, 2020, we had 2,594 employees. Our employees employed by French entities (1,006 employees) are represented by a labor union and employee representative bodies (works' council, employee delegates and a health and safety committee) and covered by collective bargaining agreements. We consider labor relations to be good and have not experienced any work stoppages, slowdowns or other serious labor problems that have materially impeded our business operations.
We have a demonstrated history of commitment to the well-being and success of our workforce, and our company is driven by our core values of “open, together and impactful”. Attracting and retaining top talent is a key objective at Criteo, and we invest significantly in talent acquisition. Employee health and safety is a priority for Criteo. We devote time and efforts across all of our locations to provide positive working conditions, work-life balance and the healthiest office environment for our employees.
We value diversity in the workforce. For example, as of December 31, 2020, 41% of our 2,594 employees were female. Further, we have a global roadmap for gender equality and have internal dashboards dedicated to that purpose. We also have a diversity and inclusion roadmap, focused on areas such as social diversity, disability and ethnic diversity. We also have seven Employees Resource Groups who carry out awareness projects around diversity & inclusion and environmental topics.
Additionally, we strive to provide exceptional training opportunities and development programs for our employees. In 2020, over 30,000 training hours were delivered to our employees. To assess and improve employee retention and engagement, we periodically survey employees, and take action to address areas of employee concern. In 2020, we carried out two employee surveys specific to COVID-19 concerns, soliciting feedback on a wide range of topics from well-being to productivity to social links with other employees.
Financial Information about Segments and Regions
We manage our operations as a single reportable segment. For information about revenues, net income and total assets of our reporting segment, please see our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. For a breakdown of our revenue and non-current assets by region, please see Note 25 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. For information regarding risks associated with our international operations, please refer to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of Part I in this Form 10-K.
Available Information
Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are made available, free of charge on our website, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). These documents may be accessed through our website at www.criteo.com under "Investors." Information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website does not constitute a part of this Form 10-K. We have included our website address in this Form 10-K solely as an inactive textual reference.
The SEC maintains a website (www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding registrants, such as Criteo, that file electronically with the SEC. With respect to references made in this Form 10-K to any contract or other document of Criteo, such references are not necessarily complete and you should refer to the exhibits attached or incorporated by reference to this Form 10-K for copies of the actual contract or document.
Item 1A Risk Factors
Investing in our ADSs involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks and all other information contained in this Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes thereto, before investing in our ADSs. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties that we are unaware of, or that we currently believe are not material, also may become important factors that affect us. If any of the following risks materialize, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially harmed. In that case, the trading price of our ADSs could decline, and you may lose some or all of your investment.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
If we fail to innovate, enhance our brand, adapt and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology, our offerings may become less competitive or obsolete. Our investments in new solutions and technologies to address new marketing goals for our clients are inherently risky and may not be successful.
Our industry and business are subject to rapid and frequent changes in technology, evolving client needs and the frequent introduction by our competitors of new and enhanced offerings. Our future success will depend on our ability to continuously enhance and improve our offerings to meet client needs, add functionality to and improve the performance of the Criteo Commerce Media Platform, and address technological and industry advancements. If we are unable to enhance our solutions to meet market demand in a timely manner, we may not be able to maintain our existing clients or attract new clients.
Our investments into new solutions and technologies are inherently risky and may not be successful. Addressing broader marketing and monetization goals, in particular customer acquisition and brand awareness, is relatively new to us, and we have had to invest substantial resources to adapt our model, pricing and organization to support this expansion. It also implies investing in new advertising formats like video for Connected TV. Similarly, we do not have a long or established track record of competing successfully in this space. If we are not successful in expanding our solutions along broader marketing goals, our results of operations could be adversely affected. Furthermore, we believe that the importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases.
In addition, we have made, and intend to continue to make, substantial investments in order to further build our brand, strengthen the Criteo Commerce Media Platform and scale our technology capabilities. However, if we are unable to continuously enhance and improve our offerings, we may be unable to respond effectively to changes in our industry, technology or user preferences, and our solutions may become less competitive or obsolete. Furthermore, brand promotion activities may not yield any increased revenue, and even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incurred in building our brand.
We have significant global sales and operations and face risks related to health epidemics that could impact our sales and operating results. In particular, our business has been and we expect will continue to be negatively impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global attempt to contain it.
We face various risks related to health epidemics, pandemics and similar outbreaks, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Any outbreak of contagious diseases, and other adverse public health developments, could have a material adverse effect on our business operations. The spread of COVID-19 and the various attempts to contain it have created significant volatility, uncertainty and economic disruption to our clients’ businesses. Certain of our customers, especially those in the Travel and Classified verticals, as well as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, have seen their businesses and revenues negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, we have seen a continued negative impact on our revenues tied to COVID-19 since March 2020. We expect that the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our revenues will continue until economic conditions durably improve and stabilize.
The impact of the ongoing pandemic has adversely impacted and may continue to adversely impact our business, financial position and results of operations in several ways, including, but not limited to:
•Significant reductions or volatility in demand for our services as customers pause their campaigns with us, decrease advertiser spend, decide not to enter into new purchase commitments, enter bankruptcy proceedings, or otherwise decrease investment in their business due to financial downturns or general economic uncertainty. This would result in a significant decline in our revenues, which could persist through and beyond the pandemic period.
•A hindrance on our ability to operate, as well as our partners’ and/or customers’ ability to operate, in affected areas, which may cause our business and operating results to decline.
•A significant decrease in our operating cash flows due to deterioration in the credit quality and liquidity of our customers and their ability to meet their payment obligations to us, which could adversely affect our accounts receivable.
•The shift to a remote working environment may negatively impact our productivity, connectivity, and oversight, and may increase our expenses. It is not clear when a return to worksite locations or travel will be permitted or what restrictions will be in place in those environments. The extent and/or duration of ongoing workforce restrictions and limitations could impact our ability to enhance, develop and support existing products and services, hold sales and marketing events, and generate new sales leads.
To the extent the COVID-19 pandemic or any other health epidemic or outbreak adversely impacts our business, operations and financial results, it may also result in the heightening the other risks described in “Item 1A. Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Form 10-K.
We face intense and increasing competition for employee talent, and if we do not retain and continue to attract highly skilled talent or retain our senior management team and other key employees, we may not be able to sustain our growth or achieve our business objectives.
Our future success depends on our ability to continue to attract, retain and motivate highly skilled employees, particularly AI experts, software engineers, product managers and other employees with the technical skills that enable us to deliver effective advertising solutions, client sales and publisher partnership representatives with experience in digital advertising. Competition for highly skilled employees in our industry is intense, in particular in the fields of AI and data science, and we expect certain of our key competitors, who generally are larger than us and have access to more substantial resources, to pursue top talent aggressively on a global basis.
Our future success also depends on the continued service of our senior management team. Our management team has been and may again be spread across multiple physical locations and geographies, which can strain the organization and make coordinated management more challenging. We have recently experienced several changes to senior management, and we are in the process of deeply transforming our business, including through certain cost reduction activities. Transition periods accompanying changes in leadership and changes due to business reorganization may result in uncertainty, impact business performance and strategies, and retention of key personnel. We may be unable to attract or retain the management and highly skilled personnel who are critical to our success, which could hinder our ability to keep pace with innovation and technological change in our industry or result in harm to our key client and publisher relationships, loss of key information, expertise or proprietary knowledge and unanticipated recruitment and training costs.
In addition, we believe that our corporate culture fosters teamwork, impactful results and an open environment. As our organization grows and evolves, we may need to implement more complex organizational management structures or adapt our corporate culture and work environments to changing circumstances, such as during times of a natural disaster or pandemic (including COVID-19). These changes could impact our ability to compete effectively, or could have an adverse impact on our corporate culture.
The market in which we participate is intensely competitive, and we may not be able to compete successfully with our current or future competitors.
The market for internet advertising solutions is highly competitive and rapidly changing. New technologies and methods of buying advertising present a dynamic competitive challenge as market participants develop and offer multiple new products and services aimed at facilitating and/or capturing advertising spend. With the introduction of new technologies and the influx of new entrants to the market, including large established companies and companies that we do not yet know about or do not yet exist, we expect competition to persist and intensify in the future, which could harm our ability to increase sales and maintain our profitability.
Large and established internet and technology companies may have the power to significantly change the very nature of the digital advertising marketplaces in ways that could materially disadvantage us. These companies could leverage their positions to make changes to their web browsers, mobile operating systems, platforms, exchanges, networks or other solutions or services that could be significantly harmful to our business and results of operations. These companies also have significantly larger resources than we do, and in many cases have advantageous competitive positions in popular products and services like Gmail, YouTube, Chrome, Facebook and Instagram, which they can use to their advantage. Furthermore, our competitors include large and established internet and technology companies that have invested substantial resources in innovation, which could lead to technological advancements that change the competitive dynamics of our business in ways that we may not be able to predict.
In addition to competing for advertising spend, we compete with many companies for advertising inventory, some of whom also operate their own advertising networks or exchanges from which we buy advertising inventory. Some of these companies that we compete with, either for advertising spend or for advertising inventory, may also be our clients or affiliated with our clients or important sources of advertising inventory. Competitive pressure may incentivize such companies to cease to be our clients or cease to provide us with access to their advertising inventory. If this were to occur, our ability to place advertisements would be significantly impaired and our results of operations would be adversely affected. We also face competition for advertising spend from within our own clients. Some large advertisers are increasingly developing in-house advertising technologies, facilitated by self-service tools offered by internet and technology companies like Adobe and Google. Similarly, large enterprise marketing platforms, like Adobe, Oracle, and Salesforce.com, Inc., could create tools that offer our clients additional opportunities to allocate advertising dollars to in-house campaigns. Competition could also hinder the success of new advertising solutions that we offer in the future.
If any of these risks were to materialize, our ability to compete effectively could be significantly compromised and our results of operations could be harmed. Any of these developments would make it more difficult for us to sell our offerings and could result in increased pricing pressure, reduced gross margins, increased sales and marketing expense and/or the loss of market share.
If we fail to access a consistent supply of advertising inventory and expand our access to such inventory, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
Essentially all of our revenue is derived from placing advertisements on publisher digital properties that we do not own. As a result, we do not own or control the advertising inventory upon which our business depends. We currently access advertising inventory through various channels, including through direct relationships with publishers and large retailers, advertising exchange platforms and other platforms that aggregate the supply of advertising inventory.
Since many widely used aggregators of advertising inventory are owned by companies that may compete with us for clients, competitive pressure may incentivize these companies to limit our access to advertising inventory available through their platforms. For example, in September 2019 we filed a complaint with the French Competition Authority against Facebook, due to Facebook’s gradual exclusion of companies including Criteo from the Facebook platform. The fact that advertising inventory available within "walled-garden" publisher environments tends to grow faster than other advertising inventory available on the market may limit the growth of our access to advertising inventory or our mere access to it overall. In addition, industry or technological changes may affect our access to inventory or the price we pay for inventory.
Similarly, our ability to continue to purchase inventory from many of the publishers and large retailers with whom we have direct relationships depends in part on our ability to consistently pay sufficiently competitive CPMs for their advertising inventory, or in the case of some Criteo Retail Media solutions, to generate sufficient advertising revenue for retailers, as well as our ability to offer advertisements from high quality companies. As more companies compete for advertising impressions on advertising exchange platforms and other platforms that aggregate supply of advertising inventory, advertising inventory may become more expensive, which may adversely affect our ability to acquire it and to deliver advertisements on a profitable basis. We may in the future have to increasingly rely on direct relationships with strong publisher partners in order to maintain the necessary access to quality advertising inventory, and we may not be able to do so on terms that are favorable to us. In addition, to support the growth of our solutions for the Awareness and Consideration marketing goals—aimed at generating brand awareness for clients and driving new visitors or prospective customers for clients—we will need to expand our access to video and connected TV inventory, both in the web and in mobile applications, the price of which may not be available on terms that are favorable to us.
Additionally, we are party to certain agreements with partners that provide us with preferred access to inventory. If the terms of those agreements change and we lose our preferred access, then our financial results could be adversely affected.
If we are not successful in these endeavors, our business and results of operations could be harmed.
The failure by Criteo AI Engine to accurately predict engagement by users could result in significant costs to us, lost revenue and diminished advertising inventory.
The effective delivery of our digital advertising solution depends on the ability of Criteo AI Engine to predict the likelihood that a consumer will engage with any given internet display advertisement with a sufficient degree of accuracy that our clients can achieve desirable returns on their advertising spend. We historically charged our clients primarily based on a cost-per-click pricing model, and our clients only paid us when a user engaged with the advertisement, usually by clicking on it. Although we have started evolving our pricing models alongside our broader suite of solutions, the majority of our revenue is generated through cost-per-click pricing models or equivalent.
Our agreements with clients are open-ended and often do not include a spending minimum. Similarly, our contracts with publishers generally do not include long-term obligations requiring them to make their inventory available to us over long periods of time. Therefore, we need to continuously deliver satisfactory results for our clients and publishers in order to maintain and increase revenue, which in turn depends in part on the optimal functioning of Criteo AI Engine.
In addition, as we have increased the number of clients and publishers that use our offerings on a global basis, we have experienced significant growth in the amount and complexity of data processed by Criteo AI Engine and the number of advertising impressions we deliver. As the amount of data and number of variables processed by Criteo AI Engine increase, and the calculations that the algorithms must compute become increasingly complex, the risk of errors in the type of data collected, stored, generated or accessed also increases.
Fraudulent or malicious activity, including non-human traffic, could also impair the proper functioning of Criteo AI Engine. For example, the use of bots or other automated or manual mechanisms to generate fraudulent clicks or misattribute clicks on advertisements we deliver could overstate the performance of our advertising. Due to the higher CPM paid for video and connected TV advertisements, the risk of fraudulent traffic may increase as we increase our purchasing of video and connected TV inventory.
If we were to experience significant errors, defects, or fraudulent or malicious activity in Criteo AI Engine, our solution could be impaired or stop working altogether, which could prevent us from purchasing any advertising inventory and generating any revenue until the errors, defects or fraudulent or malicious activity were detected and corrected. Other negative consequences from significant errors, defects or fraudulent or malicious activity in Criteo AI Engine could include:
•a loss of clients and publishers or a decrease in inventory purchased by clients;
•fewer consumer visits to our client websites or mobile applications;
•lower click-through rates or conversion rates;
•lower profitability per impression, up to and including negative margins;
•faulty inventory purchase decisions for which we may need to bear the cost;
•lower return on advertising spend for our clients;
•lower price for the advertising inventory we are able to offer to publishers;
•delivery of advertisements that are less relevant or irrelevant to users;
•refusals to pay, demands for refunds, loss of confidence, withdrawal of future business and potential liability for damages or regulatory inquiries or lawsuits; and
•negative publicity or harm to our reputation.
As a result, the failure by Criteo AI Engine to accurately predict engagement of users and to continue to do so over time could result in significant costs to us, lost revenue and diminished advertising inventory.
Regulatory, legislative or self-regulatory developments regarding internet privacy matters could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business.
Governmental authorities around the world have enacted, considered or are considering legislation or regulations that could significantly restrict our ability to collect, process, use, transfer and pool data collected from and about consumers and devices. Trade associations and industry self-regulatory groups have also promulgated best practices and other industry standards relating to targeted advertising.
In the European Union, the two main pillars of the data protection legal framework are the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (E-Privacy Directive) and the GDPR. The E-Privacy Directive directs EU member states to ensure that accessing information on an Internet user’s computer, such as through a cookie and other similar technologies, is allowed only if the Internet user has been informed about such access and given his or her consent. A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that such consent must be reflected by an affirmative act of the user, and European regulators are increasingly agitating for more robust forms of consent. These developments may result in decreased reliance on implied consent mechanisms that have been used to meet requirements of the E-Privacy Directive in some markets. A replacement by an e-privacy regulation for the E-Privacy Directive is currently under discussion by EU member states to complement and bring electronic communication services in line with the GDPR and force a harmonized approach across EU member states. It is possible that the proposed e-privacy regulation could further impede the use of cookies and the fines and penalties for breach could be significant.
Under GDPR, data protection authorities have the power to impose administrative fines of up to a maximum of €20 million or 4% of the data controller’s or data processor’s total worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year. Similarly, the e-privacy regulation, once enacted, could result in new rules and mechanisms for "cookie" consent.
Further, on October 1, 2020, the French data protection authority (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés, or CNIL) issued the final version of its guidelines on the use of cookies and other trackers and its final recommendations on modalities for obtaining users’ consent to store or read non-essential cookies and similar technologies on their devices. The recommendations provide that, when required, consent must be indicated by a clear and positive action of the data subject, such as by clicking on an “accept all” button on the first layer of the consent management platform. CNIL also noted that it should be as easy to refuse consent to the use of cookies as it is to accept consent, and a “refuse all” button should be present on the first layer of the consent management platform, equivalent to the “accept all” button in terms of size, position and color. Further, the ability to withdraw consent must be readily available at all times. The recommendations are not binding, nor are they intended to be prescriptive and exhaustive. Companies have until March 2021 to ensure compliance with these guidelines.
In 2018, the State of California adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, or the CCPA. The CCPA has been characterized as the first “GDPR-like” privacy statute to be enacted in the U.S. because its scope, and a number of the key provisions, resemble the GDPR. The CCPA establishes a new privacy framework for covered businesses by, among other requirements, creating an expanded definition of personal information, establishing new data privacy rights for consumers in the State of California, imposing special rules on the collection of personal data from minors, creating new notice obligations and new limits on the sale of personal information, and creating a new and potentially severe statutory damages framework for violations of the CCPA and for businesses that fail to implement reasonable security procedures and practices to prevent data breaches. As currently enacted, we and partners in our industry have been required to comply with these requirements since January 1, 2020, when the CCPA became effective. As with GDPR, the advertising technology marketplace may have to adapt to operating under the CCPA where it applies. Our advertising or publishing partners may impose new CCPA restrictions with which we must adapt and comply. This past November, voters in California voted to pass the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), which both amends and expands the scope of the CCPA. The CPRA will become effective on January 1, 2023, with a look back period to January 1, 2022. The CPRA creates new criteria by which businesses can be regulated, expands the definition of “personal information” to more closely match European regulations, a new audit requirement, and the creation of an agency to oversee enforcement of the CPRA. The CPRA also explicitly provides an opt-out right for cross-contextual behavioral advertising. We cannot predict the timing or outcome of this adaptation or the effect on our business. Adapting our business to the CCPA and the forthcoming new requirements under the CPRA could involve substantial resources and expense, and may cause us to divert resources from other aspects of our business, all of which may adversely affect our business.
Clarifications of and changes to these existing and proposed laws, regulations, judicial interpretations and industry standards can be costly to comply with, and we may be unable to pass along those costs to our clients in the form of increased fees, which may negatively affect our operating results.
Such changes can also delay or impede the development of new solutions, result in negative publicity and reputational harm, require significant management time and attention, increase our risk of non-compliance and subject us to claims or other remedies, including fines or demands that we modify or cease existing business practices, including our ability to charge per click or the scope of clicks for which we charge. Additionally, any perception of our practices or solutions as an invasion of privacy, whether or not such practices or solutions are consistent with current or future regulations and industry practices, may subject us to public criticism, private class actions, reputational harm or claims by regulators, which could disrupt our business and expose us to increased liability.
Finally, our legal and financial exposure often depends in part on our clients’ or other third parties' adherence to privacy laws and regulations and their use of our services in ways consistent with visitors’ expectations.
If our clients fail to adhere to our contracts in this regard, or a court or governmental agency determines that we have not adequately, accurately or completely described our own solutions, services and data collection, use and sharing practices in our own disclosures to consumers, then we and our clients and publisher partners may be subject to potentially adverse publicity, damages and related possible investigation or other regulatory activity in connection with our privacy practices or those of our clients.
In November 2018, Privacy International filed a complaint with relevant data protection authorities against Criteo and a number of other similarly situated advertising technology companies, arguing that certain of these companies' practices do not comply with the GDPR. In January 2020, CNIL opened a formal investigation into Criteo in response to this complaint. There can be no assurance that action will not be required as a result.
Our business depends on our ability to maintain the quality of content for our clients and publishers.
Our clients' satisfaction depends on our ability to place advertisements with publisher content that is well-suited to the client's product or service. If we are unable to keep our clients’ advertisements from being placed in unlawful or inappropriate content, our reputation and business may suffer. In particular, we could be treated as a spammer and blocked by internet service providers or regulators. In addition, if we place advertisements on websites containing content that is not permitted under the terms of the applicable agreements with a client, we may be unable to charge the client for impressions or clicks generated on those sites, the client may terminate their campaign, the client may require us to indemnify them for any resulting third party claims, or the client may allege breach of contract. Further, our publishers and exchange partners rely upon us not to place advertisements with inappropriate or unlawful content on their websites. As we grow our business to serve a larger number of smaller clients using self-service tools with less intervention by us, it could become more challenging to prevent inappropriate or unlawful advertisements from being shown. If we are unable to maintain the quality of our client and publisher content as the number of clients and publishers we work with continues to grow, our reputation and business may suffer and we may not be able to retain or secure additional clients or publisher relationships.
Our success depends on our ability to implement our business transformation and achieve our global business strategies.
Our business has recently undergone, and continues to undergo, a significant transformation, partially in response to major changes in the advertising technology industry driven by, but not limited to, regulations such as the GDPR and restrictions on data collection and use. The components of our transformation include diversification of our services as we shift away from third-party cookies, focus on opportunities for growth and investment, and certain organization adjustments and cost-saving initiatives. Our future performance and growth depends on the success of this transformation and our new business strategies, including our management team’s ability to successfully implement them.
The multi-year implementation of our transformation is expected to result in changes to business priorities and operations, capital allocation priorities, operational and organizational structure, and increased demands on management. Such changes could result in short-term and one-time costs, lost customers, reduced sales volume, higher than expected restructuring costs, loss of key personnel and other negative impacts on our business. We may also become subject to the risks of labor unrest, negative publicity and business disruption in connection with these initiatives.
Implementation of our business transformation may take longer than anticipated, and, once implemented, we may not realize, in full or in part, the anticipated benefits or such benefits may be realized more slowly than anticipated. The failure to realize benefits or savings, which may be due to our inability to execute plans, delays in the implementation of the transformation, global or local economic conditions, competition, changes in the advertising technology industry and the other risks described herein, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, as well as the trading price of our securities.
We may not be able to effectively integrate the businesses we acquire, which may adversely affect our ability to achieve our growth and business objectives.
We explore, on an ongoing basis, potential acquisitions of additional businesses, products, solutions, technologies or teams. If we identify an appropriate acquisition candidate, we may not be successful in negotiating the terms and/or financing of the acquisition, and our due diligence may fail to identify all of the problems, liabilities or other shortcomings or challenges of an acquired business, product, solution or technology, including issues related to intellectual property, product quality or architecture, employees or clients, regulatory compliance practices or revenue recognition or other accounting practices.
Any acquisition or investment may require us to use significant amounts of cash, issue potentially dilutive equity securities or incur debt, contingent liabilities or amortization of expenses, or impairment of goodwill and/or purchased long-lived assets, and restructuring charges, any of which could harm our financial condition or results. In addition, acquisitions, including our recent acquisitions, involve numerous risks, any of which could harm our business, including:
•difficulties in integrating the operations, technologies, services and personnel of acquired businesses, especially if those businesses operate outside of our core competency;
•the need to integrate operations across different geographies, cultures and languages and to address the particular economic, currency, political and regulatory risks associated with specific countries;
•cultural challenges associated with integrating employees from the acquired company into our organization;
•ineffectiveness, lack of scalability, or incompatibility of acquired technologies or services;
•potential loss of key employees of acquired businesses;
•inability to maintain the key business relationships and the reputation of acquired businesses;
•failure to successfully further develop the acquired technology in order to recoup our investment;
•unfavorable reputation and perception of the acquired product or technology by the general public;
•diversion of management’s attention from other business concerns;
•liability or litigation for activities of the acquired business, including claims from terminated employees, clients, former shareholders or other third parties;
•implementation or remediation of controls, practices, procedures and policies at acquired businesses, including the costs necessary to establish and maintain effective internal controls; and
•increased fixed costs.
There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully integrate the businesses that we acquire or that we will be able to leverage the acquired commercial relationships, products or technologies in the manner we anticipate. If we are unable to successfully integrate the businesses we have acquired or any business, product, solution or technology we acquire in the future, our business and results of operations could suffer, and we may not be able to achieve our business and growth objectives.
Our international operations and expansion expose us to several risks.
As of December 31, 2020, we had a direct operating presence through 29 offices located in 19 countries and did business in 104 countries. Our current global operations and future initiatives involve a variety of risks, including, in addition to risks described elsewhere in this section:
•operational and execution risk, including localization of the product interface and systems, translation into foreign languages, adaptation for local practices, adequate coordination of timing to onboard local clients and publishers, difficulty of maintaining our corporate culture, challenges inherent to hiring and efficiently managing an increased number of employees over large geographic distances, and the increasing complexity of the organizational structure required to support expansion and operations into multiple geographies and regulatory systems;
•insufficient, or insufficiently coordinated, demand for and supply of advertising inventory in specific geographic markets processed through Criteo AI Engine, which could impair its ability to accurately predict user engagement in that market;
•compliance with (and liability for failure to comply with) applicable local laws and regulations, including, among other things, laws and regulations with respect to data protection and user privacy, tax and withholding, labor regulations, anti-corruption, consumer protection, spam and content, which laws and regulations may be inconsistent across jurisdictions;
•intensity of local competition for digital advertising budgets and internet display inventory;
•changes in a specific country’s or region’s political or economic conditions;
•risks related to pricing structure, payment and currency, including aligning our pricing model and payment terms with local norms, higher levels of credit risk and payment fraud, difficulties in invoicing and collecting in foreign currencies and associated foreign currency exposure, restrictions on foreign ownership and investments, and difficulties in repatriating or transferring funds from or converting; currencies; and
•limited or unfavorable intellectual property protection;
We have one U.K. subsidiary, some of our operations are in the U.K., and some of our customers and partners pay us in British Pounds and Euros. It remains unclear what impact Brexit will have on our business in the U.K., EU and elsewhere globally. Brexit may adversely affect economic conditions in the U.K., EU and elsewhere across the globe, and could contribute to volatility in foreign exchange markets with respect to the British Pound and Euro, which we may not be able to effectively manage, and our financial results could be adversely affected. Further, Brexit may add additional complexity to our European operations, which are headquartered in Paris, France. Accordingly, we cannot predict the additional expense, impact on revenue, or other business impact that may stem from Brexit.
Additionally, operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources. We cannot be certain that the investment and additional resources required in establishing operations in other countries will produce desired levels of revenue or profitability.
Because our functional currency is the euro, while our reporting currency is the U.S. dollar, we face exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. Foreign currency exchange risk exposure also arises from intra-company transactions and financing with subsidiaries that have a functional currency different than the euro. While we are engaging in hedging transactions to minimize the impact of uncertainty in future exchange rates on intra-company transactions and financing, we may not hedge all of our foreign currency exchange rate risk. In addition, hedging transactions carry their own risks and costs, and could expose us to additional risks that could harm our financial condition and operating results.
If we fail to manage our growth and the shift in our client portfolio toward the midmarket effectively, we may be unable to execute our business plan or maintain high levels of client and publisher satisfaction.
We have experienced, and may in the future experience, rapid growth and changes in our client portfolio, which have created, and may continue to create, challenges to the quality of our service to our clients, and which have placed, and may continue to place, significant demands on our management and our operational and financial resources.
For example, over the past few years, the size of our midmarket business has grown significantly as a proportion of our overall business, and we expect it to continue to do so in the future. As our business shifts toward the midmarket category, there are several additional risks to our business, including risks relating to the financial stability of our clients and our ability to collect accounts receivable from such clients. In addition, since our midmarket business is comprised of thousands of smaller clients that require significant resources to support, it is currently less profitable than our large client business, and overall there may not be a direct correlation between a change in the number of clients in a particular period and an increase or decrease in our revenue. In 2018, we started to implement a new go-to-market strategy, aimed at maximizing our commercial opportunity for our multi-solution offering, by providing the right level of services to each our client segments and scaling our midmarket operations more efficiently and profitably. However, we will need to continue automating certain of our processes to service the midmarket category as it continues to grow globally. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully adjust to these shifting dynamics and remain profitable, while maintaining a high level of service to ensure client and publisher satisfaction.
If we fail to successfully manage the anticipated changes in our client portfolio and the associated changes in employee headcount and our organizational structure, our brand and reputation may suffer, which would in turn impair our ability to attract and retain clients and publishers and our results of operations.
The development and deployment of the self-registration and onboarding module of the Criteo Commerce Media Platform and associated processes may be delayed or may experience technical issues.
In 2018, we started undertaking a transformation of our go-to-market model, aimed at maximizing the commercial opportunity for our multi-solution offering, by providing the right level of services to each of our client segments - based on their size and business potential with us - and by scaling our midmarket operations more efficiently and profitably. This includes the roll out of a self-registration and onboarding module for lower segments of midmarket clients to sign up and be self-served in an automated, scalable and profitable way.
If our ability to develop the right capabilities internally, planning for roles and responsibilities, redeployment of resources, or training of teams fails or is lacking, then we may not be able to operate our self-registration and onboarding module in an effective manner. Further, if we lack coordination in anticipating project dependencies or lack project management and change management skills, the deployment and adoption of this self-registration and onboarding module may be delayed or may experience technical issues. As a result, we may not be able to timely leverage our self-registration and onboarding module to profitability scale, which could result in significant costs to us, lost revenue and reputational harm.
Our future success will depend in part on our ability to expand into new industry verticals.
As we market our offering to a wider group of consumer brands and companies outside of our historical three key industry verticals of retail, travel and classifieds, as well as mobile app-first verticals such as gaming, ride sharing and food delivery, we will need to adapt our solutions and effectively market our value to businesses in these new industry verticals. Our successful expansion into new industry verticals will depend on various factors, including our ability to:
•accumulate sufficient data sets relevant for those industry verticals to ensure that Criteo AI Engine has sufficient quantity and quality of information to deliver efficient and effective internet display advertisements within the relevant industry;
•design solutions that are attractive to businesses in such verticals;
•work with clients in new industry verticals through the advertising agencies that manage their advertising budgets
•hire personnel with relevant industry vertical experience to lead sales and product teams
•provide high returns on advertising spend in such industries and maintain such high returns on advertising spend at scale; and
•transparently measure the performance of such advertising spend based on clear, measurable metrics.
If we are unable to successfully adapt our offering to appeal to businesses in industries other than our core verticals, or are unable to effectively market such solutions to businesses in such industries, we may not be able to achieve our growth or business objectives. Further, as we expand our client base and offering into new industry verticals, we may be unable to maintain our current client retention rates.
As we expand the market for our solutions, we may become more dependent on advertising agencies as intermediaries, which may adversely affect our ability to attract and retain business, or exert downward pressure on our margins.
As we market our solutions, we may increasingly need advertising agencies to work with us in assisting businesses in planning and purchasing for broader marketing goals. In particular, many of our Criteo Retail Media clients work with us through advertising agencies: 49%, 62% and 66% of Criteo sponsored products revenue for 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively, relied on advertising agencies.
Overall, we believe that accessing broader advertising budgets by partnering with advertising agencies represents a significant incremental business opportunity for us. However, an increasing exposure to advertising agencies may also represent significant risks. For example, if we have an unsuccessful engagement with an advertising agency on a particular advertising campaign, we risk losing the ability to work not only for the client for whom the campaign was run, but also for other clients represented by that agency. Further, if our business evolves such that we are increasingly working through advertising agency intermediaries, we would have less of a direct relationship with our clients. This may drive our clients to attribute the value we provide to the advertising agency rather than to us, further limiting our ability to develop long-term relationships directly with our clients. Additionally, our clients may move from one advertising agency to another, and, accordingly, even if we have a positive relationship with an advertising agency, we may lose the underlying client’s business when the client switches to a new agency.
The presence of advertising agencies as intermediaries between us and our clients thus creates a challenge to building our own brand awareness and maintaining an affinity with our clients, who are the ultimate sources of our revenue. In the event we were to become more dependent on advertising agencies as intermediaries, this may adversely affect our ability to attract and retain business. In addition, an increased dependency on advertising agencies may harm our results of operations, as a result of the increased agency fees we may be required to pay and/or as a result of longer payment terms from agencies.
Our future success will depend in part on our ability to expand into new advertising channels.
We define an advertising channel as a specific advertisement medium to engage with a user or a consumer for which we currently purchase inventory through a specific source. We started delivering elements of our offering through internet display advertisements in desktop browsers. Since then, we have expanded into mobile in-browser and in-app, native display, including on social media platforms, and video inventory.
In the future, we may decide to broaden the spectrum of our advertising channels further, including connected TV and Digital Out of Home, if we believe that doing so would significantly increase the value we can offer to clients. However, any future attempts to enter new advertising channels may not be successful.
Our success in expanding into any additional advertising channels will depend on various factors, including our ability to:
•identify additional advertising channels where our solutions could perform;
•accumulate sufficient data sets relevant for those advertising channels to ensure that Criteo AI Engine has a sufficient quantity and quality of information to deliver relevant personalized advertisements through those additional advertising channels;
•adapt our solutions to additional advertising channels and effectively market it for such additional advertising channels to our existing and prospective clients;
•integrate newly developed or acquired advertising channels into our pricing and measurement models, with a clear and measurable performance attribution mechanism that works across all channels, and in a manner that is consistent with our privacy standards;
•achieve client performance levels through the new advertising channels that are similar to those delivered through existing advertising channels, and in any case that are not dilutive to the overall client performance;
•identify and establish acceptable business arrangements with inventory partners and platforms to access inventories in sufficient quality and quantity for these new advertising channels;
•maintain our gross margin at a consistent level upon entering one or more additional advertising marketing channels;
•compete with new market participants active in these additional advertising channels; and
•hire and retain key personnel with relevant technology and product expertise to lead the integration of additional advertising channels onto our platform, and sales and operations teams to sell and integrate additional advertising channels.
If we are unable to successfully adapt our solutions to additional advertising channels and effectively market such offerings to our existing and prospective clients, or if we are unable to maintain our pricing and measurement models in these additional advertising channels, we may not be able to achieve our growth or business objectives.
We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful. Our historical growth rates may not be indicative of our future growth, and we expect our operating and capital investments to continue to increase in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, we may have difficulty sustaining profitability.
We operate in a rapidly evolving industry. Our ability to forecast our future operating results is subject to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and model future growth in both our business and the digital advertising market generally. We are subject to risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly evolving industries, including challenges in forecasting accuracy, determining appropriate nature and levels of investments, assessing appropriate returns on investments, achieving market acceptance of our existing and future offerings, managing client implementations and developing new solutions. If our assumptions regarding these uncertainties, which we regularly use and update to plan our business, are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our markets, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results could differ materially from our expectations and our business could suffer.
You should not consider our revenue growth in past periods to be indicative of our future performance. In future periods, our revenue could decline or grow more slowly than we expect. We believe the growth of our revenue depends on a number of factors, including our ability to:
•attract new clients, and retain and expand our relationships with existing clients;
•maintain the breadth of our publisher network and attract new publishers, including publishers of web content, mobile applications and video and social games, in order to grow the volume and breadth of advertising inventory available to us;
•broaden our solutions portfolio to include additional marketing and monetization goals (including Awareness and Consideration) for commerce companies and consumer brands across the open Internet, including web, apps and stores;
•adapt our offering to meet evolving needs of businesses, including to address market trends such as (i) the migration of consumers from desktop to mobile and from websites to mobile applications, (ii) the increasing percentage of sales that involve multiple digital devices, (iii) the growing adoption by consumers of “ad-blocking” software on web browsers on desktop and/or on mobile devices and use or consumption by consumers of advertising-free services such as Netflix, (iv) changes in the marketplace for and supply of advertising inventory, including the shift toward header bidding, and (v) changes in the overall ecosystem such as Apple's introduction of its Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature into its Safari browser, Microsoft’s Tracking Prevention feature in its Edge browser, and Mozilla’s introduction of Enhanced Tracking Protection into its Firefox browser; and (vi) changes in consumer acceptance of tracking technologies for targeted or behavioral advertising purposes;
•maintain and increase our access to data necessary for the performance of Criteo AI Engine;
•continuously improve the algorithms underlying Criteo AI Engine and apply state-of-the-art Machine Learning approaches and hardware; and
•continue to adapt to a changing regulatory landscape governing data protection and privacy matters.
We also anticipate continuing to invest in our business to increase the scale of our solutions, existing and new, grow our headcount and expand our operations. In particular, we plan to continue to focus on maximizing our revenue after traffic acquisition costs on an absolute basis, or the revenue we derive after deducting the costs we incur to purchase advertising inventory, which we call Revenue ex-TAC, as we believe this focus fortifies a number of our competitive strengths. Our focus on maximizing Revenue ex-TAC on an absolute basis may have an adverse impact on our gross margin and we cannot be certain that this strategy will be successful or result in increased liquidity or long-term value for our shareholders.
We derive a significant portion of our revenue from companies in the retail, travel and classified industries, and any downturn in these industries or any changes in regulations affecting these industries could harm our business.
A significant portion of our revenue is derived from companies in the Retail, Travel and Classifieds industries. For example, in 2020, 2019 and 2018, 75.6%, 68.9% and 69.1%, respectively, of our combined revenue for Criteo Marketing Solutions was derived from advertisements placed for Retail commerce businesses. Any downturn or increased competitive pressure in any of our core industries, or other industries we may target in the future, may cause our clients to reduce their spending with us, or delay or cancel their advertising campaigns with us.
We have substantial client concentration in certain local markets and solutions, with a limited number of clients accounting for a substantial portion of our revenues in those areas.
Although our overall customer base is well-diversified, in certain of our local markets and specific solutions we derive a substantial portion of revenues from a limited number of clients. There are inherent risks whenever a large percentage of revenues within any specific market or solution are concentrated within a limited number of clients. We cannot predict the future level of demand for our services and products that will be generated by these clients. In addition, revenues from these clients may fluctuate from time to time. Further, some of our contracts with these clients may permit them to terminate use of our products at any time (subject to notice and certain other provisions). If any of these clients terminate or reduce use of our products, our revenues within local markets or specific solutions may be negatively impacted.
We experience fluctuations in our results of operations due to a number of factors, which make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or our guidance.
Our quarterly and annual results of operations fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, comparing our results of operations on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Fluctuations in our results of operations could cause our performance to fall below the expectations of analysts and investors, and adversely affect the price of our ADSs. You should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance. Factors that may affect our quarterly results of operations include:
•the nature of our clients’ products or services, including the seasonal nature of our clients’ advertising spending;
•lengthy implementation cycles resulting in substantial expenses incurred without any guarantee of revenue generation;
•demand for our offering and the size, scope and timing of digital advertising campaigns;
•the relative lack of long-term agreements with our clients and publishers;
•client and publisher retention rates;
•market acceptance of our offering and future solutions and services (i) in current industry verticals and new industry verticals, (ii) in new geographic markets, (iii) in new advertising channels, or (iv) for broader marketing goals;
•the timing of large expenditures related to expansion into new solutions, new geographic markets, new industry verticals, acquisitions and/or capital projects;
•the timing of adding support for new digital devices, platforms and operating systems;
•the amount of inventory purchased through direct relationships with publishers versus internet advertising exchanges or networks;
•our clients’ budgeting cycles;
•changes in the competitive dynamics of our industry, including consolidation among competitors;
•consumers' response to our clients’ advertisements, to online advertising in general and to tracking technologies for targeted or behavioral advertising purposes;
•our ability to control costs, including our operating expenses;
•network outages, errors in our technology or security breaches and any associated expense and collateral effects;
•foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, as some of our foreign sales and costs are denominated in their local currencies;
•failure to successfully manage any acquisitions; and
•general economic and political conditions in our domestic and international markets.
As a result, we may have a limited ability to forecast the amount of future revenue and expense, and our results of operations may from time to time fall below our estimates or the expectations of public market analysts and investors.
Risks Related to Data Privacy, Intellectual Property and Cybersecurity
Our ability to generate revenue depends on our collection of significant amounts of data from various sources, which may be restricted by consumer choice, clients, publishers and browsers or other software, changes in technology, and new developments in laws, regulations and industry standards.
Our ability to optimize the delivery of internet advertisements for our clients depends on our ability to successfully leverage data, including data that we collect from our clients, data we receive from our publisher partners and third parties, and data from our own operating history. Using cookies and non-cookie based mechanisms, such as hashed emails, hashed customer log-ins or mobile advertising identifiers, we collect information about the interactions of users with our clients’ and publishers’ digital properties (including, for example, information about the placement of advertisements and users’ shopping or other interactions with our clients’ websites or advertisements). Our ability to successfully leverage such data depends on our continued ability to access and use such data, which could be restricted by a number of factors, including consumer choice, restrictions imposed by counterparties (such as clients, supply sources and publishers, who may also compete with us for advertising spend and inventory) and web browser developers or other software developers, changes in technology, including changes in web browser technology, increased visibility of consent or “do not track” mechanisms or “ad-blocking” software, and new developments in, or new interpretations of, laws, regulations and industry standards. These types of restrictions could materially impair the results of our operations.
Web browser developers, such as Apple, Mozilla Foundation, Microsoft or Google, have implemented or may implement changes in browser or device functionality that impair our ability to understand the preferences of consumers, including by limiting the use of third-party cookies or other tracking technologies or data indicating or predicting consumer preferences. Today, three major web browsers — Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge — block third party cookies by default. Internet users can also delete cookies from their computers at any time. In January 2020, Google announced that it plans to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome by early 2022. Google controls more than 60% of the browser market and has an even more dominant position in the digital advertising market. These web browser developers have significant resources at their disposal and command substantial market share, and any restrictions they impose could foreclose our ability to understand the preferences of a substantial number of consumers. Although we are actively in the process of moving our business away from third-party cookies, if we are blocked from serving advertisements to a significant portion of internet users, our business could suffer and our results of operations could be harmed.
Similarly, Internet users are increasingly able to download free or paid “ad-blocking” software, including on mobile devices, which prevent third-party cookies from being stored on a user’s computer and block advertisements from being displayed to such user. In addition, Google has introduced ad blocking software in its Chrome browser that blocks certain ads based on quality standards established under a multi-stakeholder coalition. If such a feature inadvertently or mistakenly blocks ads that are not within the established blocking standards, or if such capabilities become widely adopted and the advertising technology industry does not collaboratively develop alternative technologies, our business could be harmed. The Interactive Advertising Bureau and Digital Advertising Alliance have also developed frameworks that allow users to opt out of the “sale” of their personal information under the CCPA, in ways that stop or severely limit the ability to show targeted ads.
In addition, search engines and other service providers that explicitly do not allow the tracking of data, such as DuckDuckGo, Inc., may be growing in popularity. If a significant number of web browser users switch to advertising-free services or platforms, our business could be materially impacted. Further, mobile devices allow users to opt out of the use of mobile device IDs for targeted advertising. For in-app advertising, data regarding interactions between users and devices are tracked mostly through stable, pseudonymous mobile device identifiers that are built into the device operating system with privacy controls that allow users to express a preference with respect to data collection for advertising, including to disable the identifier. These identifiers and privacy controls are defined by the developers of the mobile platforms and could be changed by the mobile platforms in a way that may negatively impact our business. For example, Apple announced in June 2020 that it will require user opt-in before permitting access to Apple’s unique identifier, or IDFA. Apple initially targeted September 2020 for implementing these changes but has pushed that date out until early Spring 2021. This shift from enabling user opt-out to an opt-in requirement is likely to have a substantial impact on the mobile advertising ecosystem and could harm our growth in this channel.
User privacy features of other channels of programmatic advertising, such as Connected TV or over-the-top video, are still developing. Technical or policy changes, including regulation or industry self-regulation, could harm our growth in those channels.
The data we gather is important to the continued development and success of Criteo Shopper Graph, which is a key element of the Criteo Commerce Media Platform. If too few of our clients provide us with the permission to share their data or if our clients choose to stop sharing their data, or if regulatory or other factors inhibit or restrict us from maintaining the data collectives underlying Criteo Shopper Graph, the value of Criteo Shopper Graph could be materially diminished, which could impact the performance of our products and materially impact our business.
In addition, our ability to collect and use data may be restricted or prevented by a number of other factors, including:
•the failure of our network, hardware, or software systems, or the network, hardware, or software systems of our clients;
•our inability to grow our client and publisher base in new industry verticals and geographic markets in order to obtain the critical mass of data necessary for Criteo AI Engine to perform optimally in such new industry verticals or geographic markets;
•malicious traffic (such as non-human traffic) that introduces "noise" in the information that we collect from clients and publishers; and
•interruptions, failures or defects in our data collection, mining, analysis and storage systems.
Any of the above described limitations could also harm our business and adversely impact our future results of operations.
The third parties upon which we rely for access to data and revenue opportunities may implement technical restrictions that impede our access to such data and revenue opportunities, which could materially impact our business and results of operations.
A substantial portion of the data we rely on comes from our publisher partners and other third parties, including advertising exchange platforms (including supply-side platforms, or “SSPs”, such as Google's Ad Manager). Similarly, we rely on our publisher partners, advertising exchange platforms and other third parties for opportunities to serve advertisements through which we generate our revenue. Our ability to successfully leverage such data and successfully generate revenue from such opportunities could be impacted by restrictions imposed by or on our publisher partners or other third parties, including restrictions on our ability to use or read cookies or other tracking features or our ability to use real-time bidding networks or other bidding networks.
For example, in light of the GDPR, some SSPs imposed restrictions on our ability to bid on opportunities to serve ads. Third-party publishers are responsible under GDPR for gathering necessary user consents and indicating to SSPs that Criteo has been approved by the applicable users. As part of their efforts to comply with their understanding of the requirements of the GDPR, which are subject to interpretation, certain SSPs that run advertising exchanges have required actions from such third party publishers with respect to such consents that appear to be stricter than what the regulations require. Similarly, SSPs and other relevant third parties may take similar actions in response to any new legislation or regulatory developments or interpretations in the future, in response to perceived user preferences, or for other reasons.
If third parties on which we rely for data or opportunities to serve advertisements impose similar restrictions or are not able to comply with restrictions imposed by other ecosystem participants, we may lose the ability to access data, bid on opportunities, or purchase digital ad space, which could have a substantial impact on our revenue.
Our business involves the use, transmission and storage of personal data and confidential information, and the failure to properly safeguard such information could result in significant reputational harm and monetary damages.
Our business involves the use, storage and transmission of confidential consumer, client and publisher information and personal data, including certain purchaser data, as well as proprietary software and financial, employee and operational information. Security breaches could expose us to unauthorized disclosure of this information, litigation and possible liability, as well as damage to our relationships with our clients and publishers. If our security measures are breached as a result of third-party action, employee or contractor error, malfeasance or otherwise and, as a result, someone obtains unauthorized access to our data or the data of consumers, our clients, publishers, employees or other third parties, our reputation could be damaged, our business may suffer and we could incur significant liability.
Our industry is prone to cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to our data or users’ data or to disrupt our ability to provide service. As a result of our prominence, the size of our user base, and the types and volume of personal data on our systems, we believe that we are a particularly attractive target for such breaches and attacks. Any failure to prevent or mitigate security breaches and improper access to or disclosure of our data or user data, including personal information and intellectual property, or information from marketers, could result in the loss or misuse of such data, which could harm our business and reputation and diminish our competitive position. In addition, computer malware, viruses, unauthorized access or system compromises and hacking by sophisticated actors have become more prevalent in our industry. Security incidents have occurred on our systems in the past, and will likely occur on our systems in the future.
Techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target. As a result, we are unable to anticipate some of these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures for such techniques. In addition, the perpetrators of such activity often are very sophisticated, and can include foreign governments and other parties with significant resources at their disposal. Cyber-attacks continue to evolve in sophistication and volume, and inherently may be difficult to detect for long periods of time. Although we have developed systems and processes that are designed to protect our data and user data, to prevent data loss, and to prevent or detect security breaches, such measures have not provided, and cannot be expected to provide, absolute security, and we may incur significant costs in protecting against and remediating cyber-attacks. We may also have to expend considerable resources on determining the nature and extent of such attacks.
If an actual or perceived security breach occurs, the market perception of our security measures could be harmed and we could lose both clients and revenue. Any significant violations of data privacy or other security breaches could result in the loss of business, litigation and regulatory investigations and penalties that could damage our reputation and adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition. Moreover, if a high profile security breach occurs with respect to another provider of digital advertising solutions, our clients and potential clients may lose trust in the security of providers of digital advertising in general, and Display Advertising solutions in particular, which could adversely impact our ability to retain existing clients or attract new ones.
Additionally, third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees, consumers, our clients, our publishers or third-party providers into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords or other information in order to gain access to our data, our clients’ data or our publishers’ data, which could result in significant legal and financial exposure and a loss of confidence in the security of our offering and, ultimately, harm to our future business prospects. A party who is able to compromise the security of our facilities, including our data centers or office facilities, or any device, such as a smartphone or laptop, connected to our systems could misappropriate our proprietary information or the proprietary information of consumers, our clients and/or our publishers, or cause interruptions or malfunctions in our operations or those of our clients and/or publishers. We have expended significant resources to protect against such threats and to alleviate problems caused by breaches in security and may have to expend additional resources for such purposes in the future. Our errors and omissions insurance may be inadequate or may not be available in the future on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, our policy may not cover any claim against us for loss of data or other indirect or consequential damages and defending a suit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and divert management’s attention.
Our efforts to address undesirable activity on our platform may also increase the risk of retaliatory attacks. As a result, we may suffer significant legal, reputational, or financial exposure, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Failures in the systems and infrastructure supporting our solutions and operations, including as we scale our offerings, could significantly disrupt our operations and cause us to lose clients.
In addition to the optimal performance of Criteo AI Engine, our business relies on the continued and uninterrupted performance of our software and hardware infrastructures. We currently place close to four billion advertisements per day and each of those advertisements can be placed in under 100 milliseconds.
Sustained or repeated system failures of our software or hardware infrastructures (such as massive and sustained data center outages) or of the software or hardware infrastructures of our third-party providers, which interrupt our ability to deliver advertisements quickly and accurately, our ability to serve and track advertisements, our ability to process consumers’ responses to those advertisements or otherwise disrupt our internal operations, could significantly reduce the attractiveness of our offering to clients and publishers, reduce our revenue or otherwise negatively impact our financial situation, impair our reputation and subject us to significant liability.
Additionally, if, for any reason, our arrangement with one or more data centers is terminated, we could experience additional expense in arranging for new facilities and support. Any steps we take to increase the security, reliability and redundancy of our systems supporting the Criteo technology or operations may be expensive and may not be successful in preventing system failures. Similarly, advancements in machine learning approaches and other technology may require us to upgrade or replace essential hardware (such as graphics processing units), which could involve substantial resources and could be difficult to implement.
In addition, while we seek to maintain excess capacity to facilitate the rapid provision of new client deployments and the expansion of existing client deployments, we may need to increase data center hosting capacity, bandwidth, storage, power or other elements of our system architecture and our infrastructure as our client base and/or our traffic continues to grow. The expansion and improvement of our systems and infrastructure may require us to commit substantial financial, operational and technical resources, with no assurance our business will increase. Our existing systems may not be able to scale up in a manner satisfactory to our existing or prospective clients, and may not be adequately designed with the necessary reliability and redundancy of certain critical portions of our infrastructure to avoid performance delays or outages that could be harmful to our business. Our failure to continuously upgrade or increase the reliability and redundancy of our infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing base of global clients and publishers could adversely affect the functioning and performance of our technology and could in turn affect our results of operations.
Finally, our systems and the systems of our third-party providers are vulnerable to damage from a variety of sources, some of which are outside of our control, including telecommunications failures, natural disasters, terrorism, power outages, a variety of other possible outages affecting data centers, a decision to close any data center or the facilities of any other third-party provider without adequate notice, and malicious human acts, including hacking, computer viruses, malware and other security breaches. Techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target. As a result, we may be unable to anticipate some of these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures.
If we are unable to prevent system failures, the functioning and performance of our solutions could suffer, which in turn could interrupt our business and harm our results of operations.
If we are unable to protect our proprietary information or other intellectual property, our business could be adversely affected.
Our patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights are important assets for us. Various events outside of our control pose a threat to our intellectual property rights, as well as to our products, services, and technologies. For example, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in every country in which we operate or intend to operate our business. Third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our proprietary rights or challenge proprietary rights held by us, and our pending and future trademark and patent applications may not be approved. Although we seek to obtain patent protection for our innovations, it is possible we may not be able to protect some of these innovations in a sufficient or effective manner. Moreover, we may not have adequate patent or copyright protection for certain innovations that later turn out to be important. Furthermore, there is always the possibility, despite our efforts, that the scope of the protection gained will be insufficient or that an issued patent may be deemed invalid or unenforceable.
Breaches of the security of our data center systems and infrastructure or other IT resources could also result in the exposure of our proprietary information. Additionally, our trade secrets may be independently developed by competitors. We cannot be certain that the steps we have taken to protect our trade secrets and proprietary information will prevent unauthorized use or reverse engineering of our trade secrets or proprietary information.
To protect or enforce our intellectual property rights, we may initiate litigation against third parties. Any lawsuits that we initiate could be expensive, take significant time and divert management’s attention from other business concerns. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially valuable. Any increase in the unauthorized use of our intellectual property may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business may suffer if it is alleged or determined that our technology or another aspect of our business infringes the intellectual property rights of others.
The online and mobile advertising industries are characterized by the existence of large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property and proprietary rights. Our success depends, in part, upon non-infringement of intellectual property rights owned by others and being able to resolve claims of intellectual property infringement or misappropriation without major financial expenditures or adverse consequences. From time to time, we may be the subject of claims that our solutions and underlying technology infringe or violate the intellectual property rights of others, particularly as we expand the scope and complexity of our business.
Regardless of whether claims that we are infringing patents or other intellectual property rights have any merit, these claims are time-consuming and costly to evaluate and defend, and the outcome of any litigation is inherently uncertain. Some of our competitors have substantially greater resources than we do and are able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation to a greater degree and for longer periods of time than we could. Claims that we are infringing patents or other intellectual property rights could subject us to significant liabilities for monetary damages, interfere with or delay our development, commercialization or provision of our offerings on acceptable terms, harm our reputation or require us to make technology or branding changes to our offerings.
In addition, we may be exposed to claims that the content contained in advertising campaigns violates the intellectual property or other rights of third parties. Such claims could be made directly against us or against the advertising agencies we work with, and media networks and exchanges and publishers from whom we purchase advertising inventory.
Generally, under our agreements with advertising agencies, media networks and exchanges and publishers, we are required to indemnify the advertising agencies, media networks and exchanges and publishers against any such claim with respect to an advertisement we served. We generally require our clients to indemnify us for any damages from any such claims. There can be no assurance, however, that our clients will have the ability to satisfy their indemnification obligations to us, and pursuing any claims for indemnification may be costly or unsuccessful. As a result, we may be required to satisfy our indemnification obligations to advertising agencies, media networks and exchanges and publishers or claims against us with our assets. This result could harm our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations, and could impact our relationships with advertising agencies, media networks and exchanges, or clients.
Our inability to use software licensed from third parties, or our use of open source software under license terms that interfere with our proprietary rights, could disrupt our business.
Our technology platform and internal systems incorporate software licensed from third parties, including some software, known as open source software, which we use without charge. Although we monitor our use of open source software, the terms of many open source licenses to which we are subject have not been interpreted by U.S. or foreign courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to provide our technology offering to our clients. In the future, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our solutions, which licenses may not be available on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all.
Alternatively, we may need to re-engineer our offering or discontinue using portions of the functionality provided by our technology. In addition, the terms of open source software licenses may require us to provide software that we develop using such software to others on unfavorable terms, such as by precluding us from charging license fees or by requiring us to disclose our source code. Any such restriction on the use of our own software, or our inability to use open source or third-party software, could result in disruptions to our business or operations, or delays in our development of future offerings or enhancements of our existing platform, which could impair our business.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Shares and the ADSs and the Trading of the ADSs
The market price for the ADSs have been and may continue to be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance.
The trading price of the ADSs has significantly fluctuated, and is likely to continue to fluctuate, substantially. The trading price of the ADSs depends on a number of factors, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section, many of which are beyond our control and may not be related to our operating performance. Since the ADSs were sold at our initial public offering in October 2013 at a price of $31.00 per share, the price per ADS has ranged as low as $5.89 and as high as $60.95 through December 31, 2020. The market price of the ADSs has fluctuated and may fluctuate significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including:
•actual or anticipated fluctuations in our revenue and other results of operations;
•the guidance we may provide to the public, any changes in this guidance or our failure to meet this guidance;
•investor perception of risks in our industry, including but not limited to the competitive concentration of supply inventory or risks of fraudulent or malicious activity;
•failure of securities analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of us and our securities, changes in financial estimates by any securities analysts who follow our company, or our failure to meet these estimates or the expectations of investors;
•announcements by us, our competitors or large influential technology companies of significant technical innovations or changes, acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;
•changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of advertising technology or other technology companies, or those in our industry in particular;
•investor sentiment with respect to our competitors, our business partners or our industry in general;
•price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market, including as a result of trends in the economy as a whole;
•additional ADSs being sold into the market by us or the Company's insiders;
•media coverage of our business and financial performance;
•developments in anticipated or new legislation or new or pending lawsuits or regulatory actions;
•other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism or responses to these events; and
•any other risks identified in this Form 10-K.
In addition, stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many technology companies. Stock prices of many technology companies have fluctuated in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, shareholders have instituted securities class action litigation following periods of market volatility. Because of the past and the potential future volatility of our stock price, we may become the target of securities litigation in the future. If we were to become involved in securities litigation, it could subject us to substantial costs, divert resources and the attention of management from our business and adversely affect our business.
Our business could be negatively impacted by the activities of predatory hedge funds or short sellers.
There is the risk that we may be subject, from time to time, to challenges arising from the activities of predatory hedge funds, short sellers or similar individuals who do not have the best interests of shareholders or the Company in mind. Reports or other publications prepared and disseminated by such hedge funds or short sellers may cause significant fluctuations in our stock price based on temporary or speculative market perceptions or other factors that do not necessarily reflect the underlying fundamentals and prospects of our business, and could cause the price of our ADSs or trading volume to decline. Furthermore, responding to such activities could be costly and time-consuming and may be intended to, and may in fact, divert the attention of our board of directors and senior management from the pursuit of our business strategies and adversely affect our business.
We may need additional capital in the future to meet our financial obligations and to pursue our business objectives. Additional capital may not be available on favorable terms, or at all, which could compromise our ability to meet our financial obligations and grow our business.
We currently have a senior unsecured revolving credit facility under which we may borrow up to €350 million (or its equivalent in U.S. dollars or, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, other optional currencies) for general corporate purposes, including the funding of business combinations (the "General RCF"). While we anticipate that our existing cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operations for at least the next 12 months, we may need to raise additional capital to fund operations in the future or to finance acquisitions. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to fund the expansion of our research and development and sales and marketing efforts, increase working capital, take advantage of acquisition or other opportunities, or adequately respond to competitive pressures which could seriously harm our business and results of operations.
Furthermore, if we issue additional equity securities, shareholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our ordinary shares. Because our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of our future offerings. As a result, our shareholders bear the risk of our future securities offerings reducing the market price of the ADSs and diluting their interest.
We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our securities and, consequently, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of the ADSs. In addition, French law may limit the amount of dividends we are able to distribute.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our ordinary shares and do not currently intend to do so for the foreseeable future. We currently intend to invest our future earnings, if any, to fund our growth, both organic and inorganic. In addition, we have used a portion of our available liquidity to repurchase our Company's shares in the past, and may continue to do so from time to time in the future.
In addition, to the extent any dividends are paid in the future, under French law, payment of such dividends may subject us to additional taxes, and the determination of whether we have been sufficiently profitable to pay dividends is made on the basis of our statutory financial statements prepared and presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in France. Therefore, we may be more restricted in our ability to declare dividends than companies not based in France. Please see the section entitled “Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities-Taxation-French Tax Consequences” in Item 5 of Part II in this Form 10-K for further details on the limitations on our ability to declare and pay dividends and the taxes that may become payable by us if we elect to pay a dividend.
Finally, exchange rate fluctuations may affect the amount of euros that we are able to distribute, and the amount in U.S. dollars that our shareholders receive upon the payment of cash dividends or other distributions we declare and pay in euros, if any. These factors could harm the value of the ADSs, and, in turn, the U.S. dollar proceeds that holders receive from the sale of the ADSs.
Because you are not likely to receive any dividends on your ADSs for the foreseeable future, the success of an investment in ADSs will depend upon any future appreciation in their value. Consequently, investors may need to sell all or part of their holdings of ADSs after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment.
Our credit agreement contains, and future debt agreements may contain, restrictions that may limit our flexibility in operating our business.
The credit agreement for the General RCF contains, and documents governing our future indebtedness may contain, numerous covenants that limit the discretion of management with respect to certain business matters. These covenants place restrictions on, among other things, our ability and the ability of our subsidiaries to incur or guarantee additional indebtedness, pay dividends and make other distributions and restricted payments, make certain acquisitions and other investments, sell certain assets or engage in mergers, acquisitions and other business combinations, and create liens. Our credit agreement also requires, and documents governing our future indebtedness may require, us or our subsidiaries to meet certain financial ratios and tests in order to incur certain additional debt, make certain loans, acquisitions or other investments, or pay dividends or make other distributions or restricted payments. To the extent we draw on the General RCF or incur new debt, the debt holders have rights senior to shareholders to make claims on our assets.
Our ability and the ability of our subsidiaries to comply with these and other provisions of our debt agreements are dependent on our future performance, which will be subject to many factors, some of which are beyond our control. The breach of any of these covenants or noncompliance with any of these financial ratios and tests could result in an event of default under the applicable debt agreement, which, if not cured or waived, could result in acceleration of the related debt and the acceleration of debt under other instruments evidencing indebtedness that may contain cross-acceleration or cross-default provisions.
Our by-laws and French corporate law contain provisions that may delay or discourage a sale of the Company.
Provisions contained in our by-laws and the corporate laws of France, the country in which we are incorporated, could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if doing so might be beneficial to our shareholders. In addition, provisions of our by-laws impose various procedural and other requirements, which could make it more difficult for shareholders to effect certain corporate actions. These provisions include, but are not limited to, the following:
•our ordinary shares are in registered form only and we must be notified of any transfer of our shares in order for such transfer to be validly registered;
•under French law, any individual or entity located outside of the European Union may need to seek the authorization of the French Minister of Economy prior to acquiring the control of, all or part of a business of, or more than 33.33% of the share capital or voting rights of the Company (see the section entitled" Exchange Controls & Ownership by Non-French Residents" in Item 5 to Part II in this Form 10-K);
•provisions of French law allowing the owner of 95% of the share capital or voting rights of a public company to force out the minority shareholders following a tender offer made to all shareholders are only applicable to companies listed on a stock exchange of the European Union and will therefore not be applicable to us;
•a merger (i.e., in a French law context, a stock-for-stock exchange following which our company would be dissolved into the acquiring entity and our shareholders would become shareholders of the acquiring entity) of our company into a company incorporated outside of the European Union would require the unanimous approval of our shareholders;
•a merger of our company into a company incorporated in the European Union would require the approval of our board of directors as well as a two-thirds majority of the votes held by the shareholders present, represented by proxy or voting by mail at the relevant extraordinary shareholders' meeting;
•under French law, a cash merger is treated as a share purchase and would require the consent of each participating shareholder; and
•our shareholders have preferential subscription rights proportionally to their shareholding in our company on the issuance by us of any additional securities for cash or a set-off of cash debts, which rights may only be waived by the extraordinary general meeting (by a two-thirds majority vote) of our shareholders or on an individual basis by each shareholder.
You may not be able to exercise your right to vote the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs.
Holders of ADSs may exercise voting rights with respect to the ordinary shares represented by the ADSs only in accordance with the provisions of the deposit agreement. The deposit agreement provides that, upon receipt of notice of any meeting of holders of our ordinary shares, the depositary will fix a record date for the determination of ADS holders who shall be entitled to give instructions for the exercise of voting rights. Upon timely receipt of notice from us, if we so request, the depositary shall distribute to the holders as of the record date (1) the notice of the meeting or solicitation of consent or proxy sent by us and (2) a statement as to the manner in which instructions may be given by the holders.
You may instruct the depositary of your ADSs to vote the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs. Otherwise, you will not be able to exercise your right to vote, unless you withdraw the ordinary shares underlying the ADSs you hold. However, you may not know about the meeting far enough in advance to withdraw those ordinary shares. If we ask for your instructions, the depositary, upon timely notice from us, will notify you of the upcoming vote and arrange to deliver our voting materials to you. We cannot guarantee you that you will receive the voting materials in time to ensure that you can instruct the depositary to vote your ordinary shares or to withdraw your ordinary shares so that you can vote them yourself.
If the depositary does not receive timely voting instructions from you, it may give a proxy to a person designated by us to vote the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs. In addition, the depositary and its agents are not responsible for failing to carry out voting instructions or for the manner of carrying out voting instructions. This means that you may not be able to exercise your right to vote, and there may be nothing you can do if the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs are not voted as you requested.
Your right as a holder of ADSs to participate in any future preferential subscription rights or to elect to receive dividends in shares may be limited, which may cause dilution to your holdings.
According to French law, if we issue additional securities for cash, current shareholders will have preferential subscription rights for these securities proportionally to their shareholding in our company unless they waive those rights at an extraordinary meeting of our shareholders (by a two-thirds majority vote) or individually by each shareholder.
However, our ADS holders in the United States will not be entitled to exercise or sell such rights unless we register the rights and the securities to which the rights relate under the Securities Act or an exemption from the registration requirements is available.
In addition, the deposit agreement provides that the depositary will not make rights available to you unless the distribution to ADS holders of both the rights and any related securities are either registered under the Securities Act or exempted from registration under the Securities Act.
Further, if we offer holders of our ordinary shares the option to receive dividends in either cash or shares, under the deposit agreement the depositary may require satisfactory assurances from us that extending the offer to holders of ADSs does not require registration of any securities under the Securities Act before making the option available to holders of ADSs. We are under no obligation to file a registration statement with respect to any such rights or securities or to endeavor to cause such a registration statement to be declared effective. Moreover, we may not be able to establish an exemption from registration under the Securities Act.
Accordingly, ADS holders may be unable to participate in our rights offerings or to elect to receive dividends in shares and may experience dilution in their holdings. In addition, if the depositary is unable to sell rights that are not exercised or not distributed or if the sale is not lawful or reasonably practicable, it will allow the rights to lapse, in which case you will receive no value for these rights.
You may be subject to limitations on the transfer of your ADSs and the withdrawal of the underlying ordinary shares.
Your ADSs, which may be evidenced by ADRs, are transferable on the books of the depositary. However, the depositary may close its books at any time or from time to time when it deems expedient in connection with the performance of its duties. The depositary may refuse to deliver, transfer or register transfers of your ADSs generally when our books or the books of the depositary are closed, or at any time if we or the depositary think it is advisable to do so because of any requirement of law, government or governmental body, or under any provision of the deposit agreement, or for any other reason subject to your right to cancel your ADSs and withdraw the underlying ordinary shares.
Temporary delays in the cancellation of your ADSs and your withdrawal of the underlying ordinary shares may arise because the depositary has closed its transfer books or we have closed our transfer books, the transfer of ordinary shares is blocked to permit voting at a shareholders’ meeting or we are paying a dividend on our ordinary shares.
In addition, you may not be able to cancel your ADSs and withdraw the underlying ordinary shares when you owe money for fees, taxes and similar charges and when it is necessary to prohibit withdrawals in order to comply with any laws or governmental regulations that apply to ADSs or to the withdrawal of ordinary shares or other deposited securities.
U.S. investors may have difficulty enforcing civil liabilities against our company and directors and senior management.
Certain of our directors and members of senior management, and those of certain of our subsidiaries, are non-residents of the United States, and all or a substantial portion of our assets and the assets of such persons are located outside the United States.
As a result, it may not be possible to serve process on such persons or us in the United States or to enforce judgments obtained in U.S. courts against them or us based on civil liability provisions of the securities laws of the United States. Additionally, it may be difficult to assert U.S. securities law claims in actions originally instituted outside of the United States.
Foreign courts may refuse to hear a U.S. securities law claim because foreign courts may not be the most appropriate forums in which to bring such a claim. Even if a foreign court agrees to hear a U.S. securities law claim, it may determine that the law of the jurisdiction in which the foreign court resides, and not U.S. law, is applicable to the claim.
Further, if U.S. law is found to be applicable, the content of applicable U.S. law must be proved as a fact, which can be a time-consuming and costly process, and certain matters of procedure would still be governed by the law of the jurisdiction in which the foreign court resides. In particular, there is some doubt as to whether French courts would recognize and enforce certain civil liabilities under U.S. securities laws in original actions or judgments of U.S. courts based upon these civil liability provisions. In addition, awards of punitive damages in actions brought in the United States or elsewhere may be unenforceable in France.
The enforceability of any judgment in France will depend on the particular facts of the case as well as the laws and treaties in effect at the time. The United States and France do not currently have a treaty providing for recognition and enforcement of judgments (other than arbitration awards) in civil and commercial matters; therefore the recognition and enforcement of any such judgment would be subject to French procedural law and may not be granted.
The rights of shareholders in companies subject to French corporate law differ in material respects from the rights of shareholders of corporations incorporated in the United States.
We are a French company with limited liability. Our corporate affairs are governed by our by-laws and by the laws governing companies incorporated in France. The rights of shareholders and the responsibilities of members of our board of directors are in many ways different from the rights and obligations of shareholders in companies governed by the laws of U.S. jurisdictions.
For example, in the performance of its duties, our board of directors is required by French law to consider the interests of our company, its shareholders, its employees and other stakeholders, rather than solely our shareholders and/or creditors. It is possible that some of these parties will have interests that are different from, or in addition to, your interests as a shareholder.
General Risk Factors
In periods of economic uncertainty, businesses may delay or reduce their spending on advertising, and we are exposed to the credit risk of some of our clients and customers, which could materially harm our business.
General worldwide economic conditions have been significantly unstable in recent years, especially in the European Union where we generated 30% of our revenue for 2020. Unstable conditions make it difficult for our clients and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and could cause our clients to reduce or delay their advertising spending with us. Historically, economic downturns have resulted in overall reductions in advertising spending, and businesses may curtail spending both on advertising in general and on a solution such as ours. We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of any economic slowdown or recovery. Any macroeconomic deterioration in the future, especially further deterioration in the European Union and some emerging markets, such as Brazil and Russia, could impair our revenue and results of operations.
Furthermore, we have expanded our offerings to serve a larger number of smaller clients, and have expanded into emerging markets such as Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey. Our changing client portfolio exposes us to additional credit risk, which could result in further exposure in the event of economic uncertainty or an economic downturn.
Additionally, our exposure to credit risks relating to our financing activities may increase if our customers are adversely affected by periods of economic uncertainty or a global economic downturn. For instance, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain of our customers have had and may continue to have difficulty meeting their payment obligations to us, resulting in late or non-payment of amounts owed. These losses have significantly impacted, and could continue to significantly impact, our operating results and financial condition.
If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls, we may be unable to accurately report our financial results or prevent fraud, and investor confidence and the market price of the ADSs may, therefore, be adversely impacted.
As a public company, we are required to maintain internal control over financial reporting and to report any material weaknesses in such internal control. In addition, we are required to submit a report by management to the Audit Committee and external auditors on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and our independent registered public accounting firm is required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting. If we identify material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting, if we are unable to comply with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a timely manner or assert that our internal controls over financial reporting are effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting when required, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of the ADSs may be adversely impacted, and we could become subject to investigations by the stock exchange on which our securities are listed, the SEC, or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.
Our failure to maintain certain tax benefits applicable to French technology companies may adversely affect our results of operations.
As a French technology company, we have benefited from certain tax advantages, including, for example, a reduced tax rate in France on technology royalty income received from global subsidiaries and the French research tax credit (crédit d’impôt recherche), or CIR. The French tax authority may audit these tax incentives and challenge the benefits. Therefore, we could be liable for additional corporate tax, and penalties and interest related thereto, which could have a significant impact on our results of operations and future cash flows. Furthermore, the tax laws may change, and could remove these incentives in the future or reduce their benefits.
We are a multinational organization faced with increasingly complex tax issues in many jurisdictions, and we could be obligated to pay additional taxes in various jurisdictions as a result of new taxes or laws, or revised interpretations thereof, which may negatively affect our business.
As a multinational organization operating in multiple jurisdictions we are subject to taxation in several jurisdictions around the world with increasingly complex tax laws, the application of which can be uncertain. The amount of taxes we pay in these jurisdictions could increase substantially as a result of changes in the applicable tax principles, including increased tax rates, new tax laws or revised interpretations of existing tax laws and precedents, which could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and results of operations.
U.S. holders of our ADSs may suffer adverse tax consequences if we are characterized as a passive foreign investment company.
A non-U.S. corporation will be considered a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, any taxable year if either (1) at least 75% of its gross income for such year is passive income or (2) at least 50% of the value of its assets (based on an average of the quarterly values of the assets during such year) is attributable to assets that produce or are held for the production of passive income. Based on the value and composition of our assets, although not free from doubt, we do not believe we were a PFIC for the taxable year ended December 31, 2020, and we do not expect to be a PFIC in the current taxable year or the foreseeable future. Since a separate factual determination as to whether we are or have become a PFIC must be made each year (after the close of such year), we cannot assure you that we will not be or become a PFIC in the current year or any future taxable year. If we are a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. holder holds ADSs, the U.S. holder may be subject to adverse tax consequences, including (1) the treatment of all or a portion of any gain on disposition as ordinary income, (2) the application of an interest charge with respect to such gain and certain dividends and (3) compliance with certain reporting requirements. Each U.S. holder is strongly urged to consult its tax advisor regarding the application of these rules and the availability of any potential elections.
If a United States person is treated as owning at least 10% of our ADSs, such person may be subject to adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences.
If a United States person is treated as owning (directly, indirectly, or constructively) at least 10% of the value or voting power of our ADSs, such person may be treated as a “United States shareholder” with respect to each “controlled foreign corporation” in our group (if any). Because our group includes one or more U.S. subsidiaries, certain of our non-U.S. subsidiaries could be treated as controlled foreign corporations (regardless of whether or not we are treated as a controlled foreign corporation). A United States shareholder of a controlled foreign corporation may be required to report annually and include in its U.S. taxable income its pro rata share of “Subpart F income,” “global intangible low-taxed income,” and investments in U.S. property by controlled foreign corporations, regardless of whether we make any distributions. Failure to comply with such reporting requirements could result in adverse tax effects for United States shareholders and potentially significant monetary penalties. An individual that is a United States shareholder with respect to a controlled foreign corporation generally would not be allowed certain tax deductions or foreign tax credits that would be allowed to a United States shareholder that is a U.S. corporation. We cannot provide any assurances that we will assist investors in determining whether any of our non-U.S. subsidiaries is treated as a controlled foreign corporation or furnish to any United States shareholders information that may be necessary to comply with the aforementioned obligations. A United States investor should consult its advisors regarding the potential application of these rules to an investment in our ADSs.
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments
We do not have any unresolved comments from the SEC staff.
Item 2. Properties
Our headquarters are located in Paris, France, in an approximately 16,000 square meter facility, under a lease agreement expiring on June 14, 2023. In addition, we had 29 offices as of December 31, 2020. We currently lease space in data centers from third-party hosting providers to operate our servers located in the United States (Texas, Virginia), France, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Japan. We believe that our facilities are adequate for our current needs.
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
From time to time we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. We are not presently a party to any legal proceedings that, if determined adversely to us, would individually or taken together have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
PART II
Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Market Information
Our ADSs have been listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “CRTO” since October 30, 2013. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for ADSs or our ordinary shares.
Holders
As of January 31, 2021, there were 36 holders of record of our ordinary shares and 129 participants in DTC that held our ADSs. The actual number of holders is greater, and includes beneficial owners whose ADSs are held in street name by brokers and other nominees. This number of holders of record and DTC participants also does not include holders whose shares may be held in trust by other entities.
ADS Performance Graph
The following graph matches our cumulative five-year total shareholder return on our ADSs with the cumulative total returns of the Russell 2000 Index and the Nasdaq Internet Index. The graph tracks the performance of a $100 investment in our ADSs and in each index (with the reinvestment of all dividends) from December 31, 2015 to December 31, 2020. The returns shown are based on historical results and are not intended to suggest future performance.
The foregoing performance graph and related information shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any future filings under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act, except to the extent we specifically incorporate it by reference into such filing.
Dividends
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our ordinary shares. We do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our equity securities in the foreseeable future and intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to fund our growth.
Subject to the requirements of French law and our by-laws, dividends may only be distributed from our statutory retained earnings. Dividend distributions, if any, will be made in euros and converted into U.S. dollars with respect to the ADSs, as provided in the deposit agreement. In addition, under the General RCF, we may not declare, make or pay dividends if our net debt to Adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio exceeds 2.0x.
Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers
We completed two ADS repurchase programs in 2020: our July 2019 program of up to $80 million, which was completed in February 2020, and our April 2020 program of up to $30 million, which was completed in July 2020. We did not have any share repurchase activity for the three months ended December 31, 2020.
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities and Use of Proceeds
There were no unregistered sales of equity securities during 2020.
Exchange Controls & Ownership by Non-French Residents
Under current French foreign exchange control regulations there are no limitations on the amount of cash payments that we may remit to residents of foreign countries. Laws and regulations concerning foreign exchange controls do, however, require that all payments or transfers of funds made by a French resident to a non-resident, such as dividend payments, be handled by an accredited intermediary. All registered banks and substantially all credit institutions in France are accredited intermediaries.
Neither the French Commercial Code nor our by-laws presently impose any restrictions on the right of non-French residents or non-French shareholders to own and vote shares. However, non-French residents must file a declaration for statistical purposes with the Bank of France (Banque de France) within 20 working days following the date of certain direct foreign investments in us, including any purchase of our ADSs. In particular, such filings are required in connection with investments exceeding €15,000,000 that lead to the acquisition of at least 10% of our outstanding ordinary shares or voting rights or the crossing of either such 10% threshold. Violation of this filing requirement may be sanctioned by five years of imprisonment and a fine of up to twice the amount of the relevant investment. This amount may be increased fivefold if the violation is made by a legal entity.
Further, any investment (i) by an individual or entity located in a country that is not a member State of the European Union or of a member State of the European Economic Area having entered into a convention on administrative assistance against tax evasion and fraud with France, or by a French citizen not residing in France, and (ii) that will result in the relevant investor acquiring the control of, all or part of a business of, or more than 33.33% of the share capital or voting rights of, a company registered in France and developing activities in certain strategic industries, such as telecommunications, cybersecurity or data collection, is subject to the prior authorization by the French Minister of Economy. In the absence of such authorization, the relevant investment shall be deemed null and void.
Taxation
French Tax Consequences
The following describes the material French income tax consequences to U.S. Holders (as defined below) of purchasing, owning and disposing of the ADSs and ordinary shares, or the Securities as in force on the date of this Form 10-K.
This discussion does not purport to be a complete analysis or listing of all potential tax effects of the acquisition, ownership or disposition of our securities to any particular investor, and does not discuss tax considerations that arise from rules of general application or that are generally assumed to be known by investors. All of the following is subject to change. Such changes could apply retroactively and could affect the consequences described below.
For the purposes of this discussion, the term “U.S. Holder” means a beneficial owner of securities that is (1) an individual who is a U.S. citizen or resident for U.S. federal income tax purposes, (2) a U.S. domestic corporation or certain other entities created or organized in or under the laws of the United States or any state thereof, including the District of Columbia, or (3) otherwise subject to U.S. federal income taxation on a net income basis in respect of securities.
If a partnership (or any other entity treated as a partnership for U.S. federal income tax purposes) holds securities, the tax treatment of a partner generally will depend upon the status of the partner and the activities of the partnership. If a U.S. Holder is a partner in a partnership that holds securities, such holder is urged to consult its own tax adviser regarding the specific tax consequences of acquiring, owning and disposing of securities.
This discussion applies only to investors that hold our securities as capital assets that have the U.S. dollar as their functional currency, that are entitled to treaty benefits under the “Limitation on Benefits” provision contained in the treaty, and whose ownership of the securities is not effectively connected to a permanent establishment or a fixed base in France.
Certain U.S. Holders (including, but not limited to, U.S. expatriates, partnerships or other entities classified as partnerships for U.S. federal income tax purposes, banks, insurance companies, regulated investment companies, tax-exempt organizations, financial institutions, persons subject to the alternative minimum tax, persons who acquired the securities pursuant to the exercise of employee share options or otherwise as compensation, persons that own (directly, indirectly or by attribution) 5% or more of our voting stock or 5% or more of our outstanding share capital, dealers in securities or currencies, persons that elect to mark their securities to market for U.S. federal income tax purposes and persons holding securities as a position in a synthetic security, straddle or conversion transaction) may be subject to special rules not discussed below.
U.S. Holders are urged to consult their own tax advisers regarding the tax consequences of the purchase, ownership and disposition of securities in light of their particular circumstances, especially with regard to the “Limitations on Benefits” provision.
Furthermore, in 2011, France introduced a comprehensive set of new tax rules applicable to French assets that are held by or in foreign trusts. These rules, among other things, provide for the inclusion of trust assets in the settlor’s net assets for purpose of applying the French wealth tax, for the application of French gift and inheritance tax to French assets held in trust, for a specific tax on capital on the French assets of foreign trusts not already subject to the French wealth tax and for a number of French tax reporting and disclosure obligations. The following discussion does not address the French tax consequences applicable to securities held in trusts.
If securities are held in trust, the grantor, trustee and beneficiary are urged to consult their own tax adviser regarding the specific tax consequences of acquiring, owning and disposing of securities.
Purchasing Consequences
Financial Transactions Tax
Pursuant to Article 235 ter ZD of the French Tax Code ("FTC"), purchases of shares or ADSs (of a French company listed on a regulated market of the European Union or an exchange formally acknowledged by the French Financial Market Authority (AMF)) are subject to a 0.3% French tax on financial transactions provided that the issuer’s market capitalization exceeds €1 billion as of December 1 of the year preceding the taxation year.
A list of companies whose market capitalization exceeds €1 billion as of December 1 of the year preceding the taxation year within the meaning of Article 235 ter ZD of the French Tax Code is published annually by the French tax authorities. Pursuant to Regulations BOI‑ANNX‑000467‑20201223 issued on December 23, 2020, Criteo is currently not included in such list. Please note that such list may be updated from time to time, or may not be published anymore in the future. Nasdaq is not currently acknowledged by the French AMF but this may change in the future. Consequently, Criteo’s securities should not fall within the scope of the tax on financial transactions described above.
Registration Duties
In the case where Article 235 ter ZD of the FTC is not applicable, transfers of shares which are not listed on a regulated market of the European Union or an exchange formally acknowledged by the French Financial Market Authority (AMF) are subject to uncapped registration duties at the rate of 0.1%. As ordinary shares of Criteo are not listed on an exchange formally acknowledged by the French Financial Market Authority (AMF) , their transfer should be subject to uncapped registration duties at the rate of 0.1%.
However, although the official guidelines published by the French tax authorities are silent on this point, ADSs should remain outside of the scope of the aforementioned 0.1% registration duties as they cannot be considered as French shares.
Ownership Consequences
Taxation of Dividends
Dividends paid by a French corporation to non-residents of France are generally subject to French withholding tax at a rate of 28% for corporate bodies or other legal entities (which is expected to be progressively decreased to 25% in 2022) or 12.8% for individuals. Dividends paid by a French corporation in a non-cooperative State or territory, as set out in the list referred to in Article 238-0 A of the FTC, will generally be subject to French withholding tax at a rate of 75%. However, eligible U.S. Holders entitled to Treaty benefits under the “Limitation on Benefits” provision contained in the Treaty who are U.S. tax residents, as defined pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty may be subject to the withholding tax at a reduced rate (as described below).
Under the tax treaty between the Government of the United States and the Government of the French Republic for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital dated August 31, 1994, as amended by additional protocols of December 8, 2004 and January 13, 2009, the rate of French withholding tax on dividends paid to an eligible U.S. Holder who is a U.S. tax resident as defined pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty and whose ownership of the ordinary shares or ADSs is not effectively connected with a permanent establishment or fixed base that such U.S. Holder has in France, is generally reduced to 15%, or to 5% if such U.S. Holder is a corporation and owns directly or indirectly at least 10% of the share capital of the issuer; such U.S. Holder may claim a refund from the French tax authorities of the amount withheld in excess of the Treaty rates of 15% or 5%, if any.
For U.S. Holders that are not individuals but are U.S. residents, as defined pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty, the requirements for eligibility for Treaty benefits, including the reduced 5% or 15% withholding tax rates contained in the “Limitation on Benefits” provision of the Treaty, are complicated, and certain technical changes were made to these requirements by the protocol of January 13, 2009. U.S. Holders are advised to consult their own tax advisers regarding their eligibility for Treaty benefits in light of their own particular circumstances.
Dividends paid to an eligible U.S. Holder may immediately be subject to the reduced rates of 5% or 15% provided that such holder establishes before the date of payment that it is a U.S. resident under the Treaty by completing and providing the depositary with a treaty form (Form 5000).
Dividends paid to a U.S. Holder that has not filed the Form 5000 before the dividend payment date will be subject to French withholding tax at the rate of 12.8%, 28% in 2020, or 75% if paid in a non-cooperative State or territory (as defined in Article 238-0 A of the FTC), and then reduced at a later date to 5% or 15%, provided that such holder duly completes and provides the French tax authorities with the treaty forms Form 5000 and Form 5001 before December 31 of the second calendar year following the year during which the dividend is paid. Certain qualifying pension funds and certain other tax-exempt entities are subject to the same general filing requirements as other U.S. Holders except that they may have to supply additional documentation evidencing their entitlement to these benefits.
Form 5000 and Form 5001, together with instructions, will be provided by the depositary to all U.S. Holders registered with the depositary. The depositary will arrange for the filing with the French Tax authorities of all such forms properly completed and executed by U.S. Holders of ordinary shares or ADSs and returned to the depositary in sufficient time so that they may be filed with the French tax authorities before the distribution in order to obtain immediately a reduced withholding tax rate.
The withholding tax refund, if any, ordinarily occurs within 12 months from filing the applicable French Treasury Form, but not before January 15 of the year following the calendar year in which the related dividend was paid.
At last, please note that subject to certain conditions, corporations can obtain a full refund of the withholding tax if they are in loss-making position. In such case, the taxation is deferred and will occur if and when profits will be made.
Wealth Tax
As from January 1, 2018, French wealth tax has been replaced by a new real estate wealth tax which applies only to individuals owning French real estate assets or rights, directly or indirectly through one or more legal entities and whose net taxable assets amount to at least 1,300,000 euros. Real estate assets allocated to an operational activity are excluded from the scope of the real estate wealth tax. Shares of an operating company holding French real estate assets in which the relevant individual holds, directly and indirectly, less than 10% of the share capital or voting rights, are also exempt from real estate wealth tax.
The tax treaty between the Government of the United States and the Government of the French Republic for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital dated August 31, 1994, as amended by additional protocols of December 8, 2004 and January 13, 2009, does not prevent the application of real estate wealth tax to a US Holder who would be a US tax resident. However, based on the above domestic provisions and considering that Criteo SA is an operating company, the owning of ADSs or ordinary shares should not be subject to real estate wealth tax.
Disposal Consequences
Taxation on sale or assimilated
As a matter of principle, under French tax law, a foreign. shareholder should be subject to French tax on any capital gain from the sale, exchange, repurchase or redemption by us of ordinary shares or ADSs, provided that the foreign shareholder is not a French tax resident for French tax purposes; and either has not held more than 25% of our dividend rights, at any time during the preceding five years, either directly or indirectly, and, as relates to individuals, alone or with relatives (as an exception, a foreign shareholder established, domiciled or incorporated in a non-cooperative State or territory as defined in Article 238-0 A of the FTC should be subject to a 75% withholding tax in France on any such capital gain, regardless of the fraction of the dividend rights it holds) or holds French real estate assets or shares, units or rights in a company at least 50% of the assets of which consist of real estate located in France, or derives at least 50% of its value, directly or indirectly, from real estate located in France.
However, based on the tax treaty between the Government of the United States and the Government of the French Republic for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital dated August 31, 1994, as amended by additional protocols of December 8, 2004 and January 13, 2009, a U.S. Holder who is a U.S. tax resident for purposes of the treaty, has no permanent establishment or fixed base in France and is entitled to treaty benefit will only be subject to French tax on capital gain resulting from the sale of shares, units or rights in a company at least 50% of the assets of which consist of real estate located in France, or derives at least 50% of its value, directly or indirectly, from real estate located in France. Based on these provisions, capital gain resulting from the sale or assimilated of ADSs and ordinary shares should not be subject to taxation in France. U.S. Holders who own ordinary shares or ADSs through U.S. partnerships that are not residents for Treaty purposes are advised to consult their own tax advisors regarding their French tax treatment and their eligibility for Treaty benefits in light of their own particular circumstances.
Gift and inheritance Tax
Under French tax law, the following assets are subject to gift and inheritance tax :
- all movable or immovable property located in France or outside France when the donor or the deceased had his tax residence in France within the meaning of Article 4 B of the FTC;
- movable or immovable property located in France (Included French real estate assets held indirectly), when the donor or the deceased is not domiciled for tax purposes in France;
- movable and immovable property located in France or outside France received from a donor or deceased domiciled outside France by the heir, donee or legatee who is domiciled for tax purposes in France within the meaning of Article 4 B of the CGI and has been so domiciled for at least six years during the last ten years preceding the year in which he receives the property
However, based on the article 5 of the tax treaty between the Government of the United States and the Government of the French Republic for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Inheritances and Gifts, dated November 24, 1978 (as amended by the protocol of December 8, 2004), if the US Holder is domiciled in US and has no permanent establishment or fixed base in France , only the French real estate assets and shares, units or other interests in a company or legal entity whose assets consist, directly or through one or more other companies or legal entities, of at least 50% of real property located in France or of rights relating to such property, can be subject to gift and inheritance tax. Based on these provisions, ADSs or ordinary shares should not be subject to gift and inheritance tax.
Item 6. Selected Financial Data
Our audited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We derived the selected consolidated statements of income data for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020 and selected consolidated statements of financial position data as of December 31, 2019 and 2020 from our audited consolidated financial statements included in Part IV, Item 15 “Exhibits and Financial Statements” of this Form 10-K. The selected consolidated statements of income data for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2017 and the selected consolidated financial position data as of December 31, 2016, 2017 and 2018 have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto which are not included in this Form 10-K. This data should be read together with Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” as well as our audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto appearing elsewhere in this Form 10-K. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in the future.
Consolidated Statements of Income Data:
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Year Ended December 31, |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2018 | | 2017 | | 2016 |
| (in thousands, except share and per share data) |
Revenue | $ | 2,072,617 | | | $ | 2,261,516 | | | $ | 2,300,314 | | | $ | 2,296,692 | | | $ | 1,799,146 | |
| | | | | | | | | |
Cost of revenue (1): | | | | | | | | | |
Traffic acquisition costs | (1,247,571) | | | (1,314,947) | | | (1,334,334) | | | (1,355,556) | | | (1,068,911) | |
Other cost of revenue | (137,028) | | | (117,533) | | | (131,744) | | | (121,641) | | | (85,260) | |
Gross profit | 688,018 | | | 829,036 | | | 834,236 | | | 819,495 | | | 644,975 | |
| | | | | | | | | |
Operating expenses | | | | | | | | | |
Research and development expenses (1) | (132,513) | | | (172,591) | | | (179,263) | | | (173,925) | | | (123,649) | |
Sales and operations expenses (1) | (330,285) | | | (375,477) | | | (372,707) | | | (380,649) | | | (282,853) | |
General and administrative expenses (1) | (116,395) | | | (139,754) | | | (135,159) | | | (127,077) | | | (117,469) | |
Total operating expenses | (579,193) | | | (687,822) | | | (687,129) | | | (681,651) | | | (523,971) | |
Income from operations | 108,825 | | | 141,214 | | | 147,107 | | | 137,844 | | | 121,004 | |
Financial expense | (1,939) | | | (5,749) | | | (5,084) | | | (9,534) | | | (546) | |
Income before taxes | 106,886 | | | 135,465 | | | 142,023 | | | 128,310 | | | 120,458 | |
Provision for income taxes | (32,197) | | | (39,496) | | | (46,144) | | | (31,651) | | | (33,129) | |
Net income | $ | 74,689 | | | $ | 95,969 | | | $ | 95,879 | | | $ | 96,659 | | | $ | 87,329 | |
Net income available to shareholders of Criteo S.A. (2) | $ | 71,679 | | | $ | 90,745 | | | $ | 88,644 | | | $ | 91,214 | | | $ | 82,272 | |
Net income available to shareholders per share: | | | | | | | | | |
Basic | $ | 1.18 | | | $ | 1.41 | | | $ | 1.33 | | | $ | 1.40 | | | $ | 1.30 | |
Diluted | $ | 1.16 | | | $ | 1.38 | | | $ | 1.31 | | | $ | 1.34 | | | $ | 1.25 | |
Weighted average shares outstanding used in computing per share amounts: | | | | | | | | | |
Basic | 60,876,480 | | | 64,305,965 | | | 66,456,890 | | | 65,143,036 | | | 63,337,792 | |
Diluted | 61,818,593 | | | 65,598,588 | | | 67,662,904 | | | 67,851,971 | | | 65,633,470 | |
(1) Cost of revenue and operating expenses include equity awards compensation expense, pension service costs, depreciation and amortization expense, acquisition-related costs, restructuring and transformation related costs and deferred price consideration as follows:
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Year Ended December 31, |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2018 | | 2017 | | 2016 |
| (in thousands) |
Equity awards compensation expense | | | | | | | | | |
Research and development expenses | $ | 10,253 | | | $ | 15,036 | | | $ | 21,232 | | | $ | 21,093 | | | $ | 12,108 | |
Sales and operations expenses | 12,042 | | | 19,301 | | | 29,244 | | | 31,386 | | | 16,838 | |
General and administrative expenses | 9,130 | | | 14,795 | | | 16,600 | | | 19,872 | | | 14,313 | |
Total equity awards compensation expense (a) | 31,425 | | | 49,132 | | | 67,076 | | | 72,351 | | | 43,259 | |
Pension service costs | | | | | | | | | |
Research and development expenses | 1,114 | | | 760 | | | 844 | | | 621 | | | 211 | |
Sales and operations expenses | 394 | | | 283 | | | 325 | | | 247 | | | 144 | |
General and administrative expenses | 724 | | | 513 | | | 522 | | | 363 | | | 169 | |
Total pension service costs | 2,232 | | | 1,556 | | | 1,691 | | | 1,231 | | | 524 | |
Depreciation and amortization expense | | | | | | | | | |
Cost of revenue | 55,935 | | | 44,866 | | | 67,347 | | | 53,988 | | | 38,469 | |
Research and development expenses (b) | 10,741 | | | 16,508 | | | 10,602 | | | 11,226 | | | 7,211 | |
Sales and operations expenses (c) | 16,770 | | | 24,914 | | | 18,245 | | | 19,844 | | | 7,757 | |
General and administrative expenses | 4,792 | | | 7,200 | | | 7,306 | | | 5,738 | | | 3,342 | |
Total depreciation and amortization expense | 88,238 | | | 93,488 | | | 103,500 | | | 90,796 | | | 56,779 | |
Acquisition-related costs | | | | | | | | | |
General and administrative expenses | 286 | | | — | | | 1,738 | | | 6 | | | 2,921 | |
Total acquisition-related costs | 286 | | | — | | | 1,738 | | | 6 | | | 2,921 | |
Acquisition-related deferred price consideration | | | | | | | | | |
Research and development expense | — | | | — | | | — | | | — | | | 85 | |
Sales and operations expenses | — | | | — | | | — | | | — | | | — | |
General and administrative expenses | — | | | — | | | — | | | — | | | — | |
Total acquisition-related deferred price considerations | — | | | — | | | — | | | — | | | 85 | |
Restructuring related and transformation costs | | | | | | | | | |
Cost of revenue | — | | | | | — | | | 2,497 | | | — |
Research and development expenses | 4,240 | | |