Hollywood demand boosts Zoo Digital

Stuart Green, chief executive of Zoo Digital

The Sheffield-based group said it has steadily increased the number of quality voice actors and dubbing professionals to meet demand.

The firm said its growing reputation in the market is helping it engage with these professionals, enabling services to be fulfilled across a growing number of languages.

Zoo expects to report adjusted earnings of at least £1.7m in the year to March 31, up from £1.3m the year before.

The group said it was also encouraged by the level of industry feedback and acclaim that ZOOdubs and the associated dubbing service achieved at the NAB show in Las Vegas, held earlier this month. It said the level of interaction with senior individuals from major players within the industry and the resulting enquiries underlines the confidence that the board has in the group’s long-term opportunity, particularly in respect of its localisation services.

Stuart Green, chief executive of Zoo, said: “We are pleased to confirm guidance for the full year results. We continue to see momentum in the business, driven by our localisation services, and remain optimistic for the future.”

Analyst Andrew Darley at FinnCap said: "The localisation services, delivering ZOOsubs and ZOOdubs, deliver significant degrees of efficiency which continued to stimulate Zoo’s reputation, evidenced by the industry award winning presence and associated buzz at NAB in Las Vegas.

"In turn this has driven customer demand – with consequent capacity for engagement with increasing numbers of voice actors and dubbing professionals, hence a virtuous circle in languages, territorial reach, and attractiveness to major customers for whom Zoo is a one stop service provider.

"With such increasing evidence of successful execution and highly enviable growth, we review our 12-month target price to 116p in anticipation of continuing extraordinary growth driven by the demand from the biggest names in the target client base, including the best known household names, both studios and online content platforms."

Given the importance of localisation services, the group intends to re-classify the costs of the internal staff responsible for fulfilling client projects as a cost of sale rather than as a central overhead as previously.

The board believes that this will be more representative of the group’s trading and will have no effect on the reporting of its overall profitability.

The company said that the process for appointing a new chief finance officer is ongoing.

Zoo expects to publish its full year results in the week commencing July 2.