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View All NewsAustralia – Freelancer revenue slips 2.3% in 2021
Freelancer (FLN:ASX) reported net revenue fell by 2.3% for the full year 2021 to AUD 57.4 million (USD 41.5 million).
Revenue was down 8.8% at its Freelancer.com talent platform; however, it was up 37.3% on its Escrow.com payments platform, for an all-time record of AUD 11.3 million (USD 8.1 million).
| (AUD millions) | FY 2021 | FY 2020 | % change | FY 2021 (USD thousands) |
| Revenue | 57.4 | 58.8 | -2.3% | 41.5 |
| Gross profit | 47.7 | 49.0 | -2.7% | 34.4 |
| Gross margin | 83.1% | 83.3% | - | |
| EBITDA | -2.8 | -0.6 | - | -2.0 |
| Total comprehensive loss for the year | -1.9 | -0.9 | - | -1.3 |
During the year, Freelancer reported an all-time record Gross Payment Volume of AUD 1.25 billion (USD 903.0 million) up 41.3% over the year.
Gross Payment Volume (GPV) is calculated as the total payments to Freelancer or Escrow users for products and services transacted through the Freelancer or Escrow websites (GMV) plus net Revenue. Based on Freelancer’s unaudited management accounts which have not been subject to an auditor's review.
Freelancer GMV totalled 134.5 million (USD 97.1 million) down 5.2% over the year. Escrow reported an all-time record GPV of AUD 1.079 billion (USD 779.4 million), up 54.3%.
The group said FY21 saw significant improvements to the core product, with all of its efforts on merging codebases and overhauling the mobile experience paying off in the form of increased productivity and speed of shipping new product features.
The group said macroeconomically, the northern hemisphere seasonality was far more pronounced in H2 21 due to the decreasing of lockdowns and other restrictions. This was benchmarked against H2 20 where there was no seasonal drop, due to lockdowns.
In Q2 21 the group made significant alterations to its predictive ad targeting models to improve customer acquisition. These improvements improved the profitability but cut advertising spend more than what was forecast. Bringing the spend back up under the new, higher profitability targets took longer than expected, the group added.
During the year Freightlancer, a subsidiary of Freelancer, announced that it acquired Loadshift, a heavy haulage transport marketplace based in Australia. The combined entity closed with all-time records quarter on quarter.
Shares in Freelancer Ltd (FLN:ASX) closed at AUD 0.530 (USD 0.38), down 1.85% and 11.58% above the 52 week low of AUD 0.475 (USD 0.34) set on 5 March 2021. The company has a market cap of AUD 243.49 million (USD 175.8 million).