Intershop Communications : reports positive business performance for first nine months of 2017

- Consolidated revenues climb 7% to EUR 26.4 million (previous year: EUR 24.7 million)
- Positive EBIT of EUR 0.2 million (previous year: EUR -2.0 million)
- Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of EUR 2.1 million (previous year: EUR -0.2 million)
- Good new business trend thanks to focus on wholesalers and cloud

Jena, 2 November 2017 - Intershop Communications AG (ISIN: DE000A0EPUH1), a leading independent provider of innovative solutions for omni-channel commerce, reports a positive business performance for the first nine months of 2017. During the reporting period, the Intershop Group increased its revenues by 7% to EUR 26.4 million. This revenue growth is primarily attributable to the good new business trend, which results from the implementation of the "Lighthouse 2020" strategy. In the year to date, Intershop has won more than twice as many new customers as in the same period of the previous year, about half of whom come from the wholesale segment. Moreover, many existing customers migrated to the latest version of the Intershop Commerce Suite in the reporting period. Among them were both cloud-based shops as well as traditional installations.

Driven by the good new business trend, the strategically important product revenues increased by 11% to EUR 10.5 million. In addition, the company received cloud orders in the third quarter, which will lead to continuous licensing and full-service revenues in the following quarters. Service revenues were up by 4% on the prior year period to EUR 15.8 million, primarily driven by growing full-service revenues. Product revenues accounted for 40% of total revenues, up from 39% in the previous year.

The gross margin rose by five percentage points to 49%. At EUR 12.7 million, operating expenses were slightly below the previous year's EUR 13.0 million. As the company continues to intensify its sector and cloud focus, increased investments were made in marketing and sales. As a result, the corresponding costs rose by 12% to EUR 6.1 million. As planned, these investments were more than offset by cost reductions in the administrative area.

The Intershop Group's earnings situation improved significantly in the reporting period. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the first nine months totaled EUR 0.2 million (previous year: EUR -2.0 million). The Group generated positive EBIT in each of the three quarters of 2017. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) climbed from EUR -0.2 million in the prior year period to EUR 2.1 million. The net result for the period amounted to EUR -16k (previous year: EUR -2.4 million), which is equivalent to earnings per share of EUR 0.00 (previous year: EUR -0.07).

Due to the improved result, Intershop generated clearly positive operating cash flow of EUR 1.5 million in the first nine months of the year (previous year: EUR -1.4 million). At EUR 9.6 million, cash and cash equivalents declined by EUR 1.3 million compared to the end of 2016, which is primarily attributable to the scheduled repayment of a loan. The equity ratio climbed from 59% to 63%, which underlines Intershop's solid asset and capital structure.

Dr. Jochen Wiechen, CEO of Intershop Communications AG: "We have made good progress in implementing our 'Lighthouse' roadmap, and the intensified sales and marketing activities are clearly taking effect. Our visibility in the target markets has increased notably and we have won a number of companies for our cloud and B2B offering. Our partnership with Microsoft is also moving forward, with several customers such as Miele having signed up for our joint cloud offering. These orders will result in continuous income, which will improve the planning certainty of our business."

The Intershop Management Board continues to project moderately higher revenues and balanced earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the full year 2017.

The interim report on the first nine months of 2017 is available for download at http://www.intershop.com/investors-financial-reports.

Contact:
Investor Relations
Heide Rausch
T: +49-3641-50-1000
F: +49-3641-50-1309
ir@intershop.com