Entravision Communications Corporation (NYSE:EVC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

James Dix: And then I guess, finally, just internationally, just — since you’re global, just trying to get some sense as to like what countries and regions have been outliers to you either positively or negatively in terms of your growth?

Chris Young: Yes, I’ve got — Latin America was up in third quarter, 18%, Asia was up 24%. Europe was up 19%. Africa was down close to 30%. And then in the U.S., on the digital side, it was up 1%. And then we also did some business in the Middle East as well, and that was up from 4 times, but that’s our Jack of Digital business in Pakistan.

James Dix: And are you seeing much change in terms of the mix of the growth across those geographies as you look toward the end of the year? Or is that — should we be looking for something similar?

Chris Young: Yes. I think as you look into Q4, I think all of those regions have come down a little bit Q4 versus Q3 in general. So maybe you take it down a couple of points. But clearly, particularly with Meta, Meta in LatAm, something to the tune of, I think, LatAm and they break out LatAm, Africa and the Middle East, they were plus 30% for the quarter. We did a plus 18%. So it’s still the growth versus they did a plus 7 or 8 in the U.S. So it’s still — in our markets, Facebook, Meta is still the growth engine in these regions, and we expect that to continue.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mike Albanese from EF Hutton. Please go ahead with your question.

Mike Albanese: Just a couple of quick ones. I want to dive back in, I guess, to the kind of sector level. You mentioned that auto services, and I think health care have all been showing good trends. I mean, on the flip side of that, is there anything standing out or any copies of weakness that you’re seeing or maybe even just kind of give us a sense of the variation between what you’re seeing at top level, which I guess is maybe auto and sectors that are underperforming?

Chris Young: Yes. So from the — [Indiscernible] are not performing as we would like them to be. It’s really travel and leisure as the retail as also restaurants. So a lot of those have to do with the economic conditions that we’re in currently.

Mike Albanese: And then just to dive back into 2024 priorities, more specifically capital allocation, reinvesting drive organic growth. You mentioned expanding news capacity. You mentioned AI. Maybe you could talk — just give us a sense of how you intend to use AI or maybe just add a little bit more color into that? And then in terms of just CapEx needs in 2024, historically high this past year as expected, right? And I mean, kind of are you expecting that to really be the same in the next year or come back down more towards historical levels, I guess?

Chris Young: Yes. CapEx, I’ll cover — CapEx will be more normalized next year in the $11 million to $12 million range, down from where it is this year because of the move that we did here in Los Angeles. And then the AI question, I think…

Michael Christenson: Yes. In — really, in all of our digital businesses, AI and machine learning are now a critical part of the capabilities of the products that we deliver to advertisers. So we have to invest to be competitive in all of those businesses or even to establish some competitive differentiation. So that’s across the board, having committed to making that investment, what we’re also doing is saying, can it apply to other areas of our business, can we operate the company more efficiently and — or smarter using those capabilities. So like every company, this is now a critical area of investment, and we need to keep up.

Mike Albanese: Yes. I guess just regarding internally with operational efficiencies. Is this something you’re just — you’re kind of looking into if you identified ways, I guess, where you believe that you can implement AI technology and find efficiencies and improvements?