Zedge (ZDGE) Risk Factors

In fiscal 2024, approximately 79% of our revenues (excluding GuruShots) were generated from selling advertising inventory. We generally enter into arrangements with the major programmatic advertising networks to monetize our advertising inventory. We need to maintain good relationships with these advertising networks to provide us with a sufficient inventory of advertisements. Online advertising, including through mobile applications, is an intensely competitive industry. Many large companies, such as Applovin, Meta and Google, invest significantly in data analytics to make their properties and platforms more attractive to advertisers. Our advertising revenue is primarily a function of the number and hours of engagement of our free users and our ability to provide innovative advertising products that are relevant to our users, maintain or increase user engagement and satisfaction with our products, and enhance returns and add incremental gains for our advertising partners. If our relationship with any advertising partners terminates for any reason, or if the commercial terms of our relationships are changed or do not continue to be renewed on favorable terms, or if we cannot source high-quality ads consistent with our brand or product experience, we would need to qualify new advertising partners, which could negatively impact our revenues, at least in the short term. In addition, internet-connected devices and operating systems controlled by third parties increasingly contain features that allow device users to disable functionality that allows for the delivery of advertising on their devices or reduce the ability to provide personalized or targeted advertising, which results in less valuable ads. Device and browser manufacturers may include or expand these features as part of their standard device specifications. For example, when Apple announced that UDID, a standard device identifier used in some applications, was being superseded and would no longer be supported, application developers were required to update their apps to utilize alternative device identifiers such as universally unique identifier, or, more recently, identifier-for-advertising, which simplifies the process for Apple users to opt out of behavioral targeting. Furthermore, laws and regulations may also make it more difficult to deliver personalized or targeted advertising or impose requirements that result in more users making elections to block our ability to deliver targeted ads. If users do not elect to participate in functionality that supports the delivery of targeted advertising on their devices, our ability to deliver effective advertising campaigns could suffer, which could cause our business, financial condition, or operating results to be adversely affected. We anticipate that our growth and profitability will continue to depend on our ability to sell our advertising inventory. Companies that advertise with us may choose to utilize other advertising channels or may reduce or eliminate their marketing altogether for a variety of reasons, many of which are out of our control, including, without limitation, if the demand for mobile phone personalization industry declines or otherwise falls out of favor with advertisers or consumers. If the size of the digital advertising market does not increase from current levels, or if our digital brands are unable to capture and retain a sufficient share of that market, our ability to maintain or increase our current level of advertising revenues and our revenues, profitability and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

We currently incorporate AI into specific existing and planned products, as well as our internal operations. For instance, in fiscal 2023, we launched pAInt, a generative AI wallpaper maker within the Zedge App. Additionally, we have other offerings utilizing AI in soft launch or development and we view this evolving technology as a key driver and focus of new products. While AI offers substantial opportunities, it also carries inherent risks to our business, reputation and financial results. AI technologies are complex and evolving rapidly. Our competitors may possess greater financial and technological resources, providing them with a competitive edge in attracting, motivating, and retaining top AI professionals. This could pose challenges in building and maintaining our AI capabilities. In addition, market acceptance of AI technologies is uncertain, and we may be unsuccessful in product development efforts which incorporate AI. Our products offerings that use AI could fail to achieve market acceptance, or our competitors may use AI technologies more efficiently than we do. Furthermore, the use of AI brings to the forefront emerging ethical concerns. Should we introduce solutions that generate content that is misleading, biased, harmful or controversial due to perceived or actual societal impact, we may face potential harm to our brand and reputation, competitive disadvantages, or even legal liabilities. In addition, we are susceptible to competitive risks arising from the rapid adoption and integration of new technologies by established industry participants, emerging startups, and other market entrants. Over time, AI tools are likely to enhance their accuracy and ability to handle complex tasks, potentially disrupting the landscape for educational technology businesses like ours. We must remain vigilant in our efforts to predict and respond to these developments in a timely and cost-effective manner. Laws and regulations focused on the development, use, and provision of AI technologies and other digital products and services are proliferating in many jurisdictions around the world. Staying compliant with evolving laws, regulations, and industry standards pertaining to AI may impose significant operational costs and constrain our ability to develop, deploy, or employ AI technologies. Failing to adapt appropriately to this evolving regulatory environment could result in legal liability, regulatory actions, monetary penalties and damage to our brand and reputation. Intellectual property ownership surrounding AI technologies has not been fully addressed by U.S. courts or other federal or state laws or regulations, Our ongoing development and use of generative AI tools may result in copyright infringement claims, disputes over ownership and licensing, and potential patent infringement claims, among other things. These legal challenges could be costly to defend against, leading to substantial financial obligations and reputational damage. The evolving regulatory environment and uncertain legal precedents in this field further increase our exposure to litigation risks, which could materially affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Further, our use of generative AI in aspects of our platforms may present risks and challenges that could increase as AI solutions become more prevalent. AI algorithms may be flawed. Datasets may be insufficient or contain biased information. These deficiencies and other failures of AI systems could have negative impacts on our users' experience and subject us to competitive harm, regulatory action, legal liability, and brand or reputational harm.

The size of our user base and our users' level of engagement and paid conversion are fundamental to our success. Our financial performance has been and will continue to be dependent on our ability to successfully add new users, retain and engage existing users and convert them into paying users and/or subscribers. We expect that the size of our user base will fluctuate or decline in one or more markets from time to time. If consumers and/or creators do not perceive our products as useful, effective, entertaining, reliable, and/or trustworthy, we may not be able to attract or keep users or otherwise maintain or increase the frequency and duration of their engagement or the percentage of users that are converted into or remain paying subscribers. There is no guarantee that we will not experience a decline in our user base or engagement levels. User engagement can be difficult to measure, particularly as we introduce new and different products and services, and as various privacy regulations evolve. Any number of factors can negatively affect user retention, growth, engagement and conversion, including if: - users opt to utilize other competitive products or services instead of our own;- user behavior changes with respect to our products and services resulting in a decrease of engagement and/or session time;- users decrease their engagement, session time, or uninstall our apps because they feel their experience is diminished due to product decisions that we make with respect to introducing new features, feature enhancements, an/or monetization techniques;- users become concerned about our user data practices or other matters related to privacy, security and the sharing of user data;- users are no longer willing to pay for subscriptions or in-app purchases or we are unable to increase the price of our subscriptions or in-app purchases;- users have difficulty installing, updating or otherwise accessing our products and services as a result of our actions or those of third parties that we rely on to distribute our products and deliver our services;- we fail to introduce new features, products or services that users find engaging or enhance the existing products and services with improvements that users are interested in;- we are unable to acquire users through cost-effective marketing efforts, including both organic and paid channels;- we are unable attract sufficient new paying users to offset and exceed those lost through natural churn thus making it more difficult to maintain and grow revenues;- initiatives designed to attract and maintain users and increase engagement are unsuccessful because of errors that we make or policies instituted by third parties that we use to distribute our products or deliver our services;- third-party initiatives that may enable greater use of our products, including low-cost or discounted data plans, are discontinued;- we adopt terms, policies or procedures related to areas such as privacy, user data, content ownership, or monetization techniques that are received negatively by our users or creators;- we fail to combat inappropriate or abusive activity on our platforms;- we are unable to offer relevant content to our users;- we fail to provide adequate support for our users and creators;- there are outages or other technical problems that result in making our products and services inaccessible, unreliable or that result in a poor user experience;- there are actions by governments that affect accessibility to our products and services in any market; or - there are regulations and/or litigation that result in users not accepting our terms of use because of measures that we have taken in order to ensure compliance. Certain of these factors have, at various times, negatively impacted user and creator growth, MAU and engagement. If we are unable to maintain or increase our user base and user engagement, our revenue and financial results may be materially adversely affected.

Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to aggregate and host compelling content and deliver that content to our users via our digital properties. We achieve this when users play our games, when artists, individual creators and brands upload their licensed content to our marketplace, or when we create content or enter into business partnerships with content owners and distribute this content in our marketplace. In addition, we commission authors to write articles for our blog. We believe that users value high-quality content. As such, we may need to make substantial payments to third parties from whom we license or acquire such content from or from whom we create this content for our behalf. Our ability to maintain and build relationships with such third-party providers may become important to our success. As competition for compelling content increases both domestically and internationally, our partners may alter business terms under which they avail their content and services to us and potential providers may not offer their content or services to us at all, or may offer them on terms that are not agreeable to us. A change in these commercial terms could harm our operating results and financial condition. Further, much of the content that we acquire may only be available on a non-exclusive basis allowing competitors the ability of offering this content to our disadvantage. We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims or other allegations, which could require us to pay substantial statutory penalties or other damages and fines, remove relevant content, enter into license agreements which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or could result in our being barred from third-party distribution platforms, which could harm our business and competitive position. From time to time, we are subject to claims from owners of technology patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and content, who assert claims against us. There may also be new laws and regulations that are adopted that change the rules related to the safe harbor for user generated content and ultimately requiring us to pay licensing fees. If a claim of infringement is brought against us that we are not able to successfully and cost-effectively defend, we may be required to pay substantial penalties or other damages and fines, remove relevant content, enter into license agreements that may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all or be barred from any of the third-party distribution platforms. Even though the allegations or claims could be baseless, our defense against any of these allegations or claims would be both costly and time-consuming and could significantly divert the efforts and resources of our management and other personnel.

Technologies have been developed, and will likely continue to be developed, that can block the display of advertisements on our digital products and services. We may suffer negative consequences, including a material reduction of revenue, with mass adoption of website ad blocking technologies or other technologies that limit the ability to personalize advertisements, including, without limitation, if the price for this advertising inventory declines. We generate substantially all of our revenue from advertising, and ad-blocking technologies may prevent the display of certain advertisements appearing on our platform, which could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Existing ad-blocking technologies that have not been effective on our platform may become effective as we make certain platform changes, and new ad-blocking technologies may be developed in the future.

The global financial markets have experienced significant disruptions over the past fifteen years and the recoveries from the lows of 2008 and 2009 as well as from the Covid 19 pandemic have been uneven. There is considerable uncertainty over the long-term effects of the expansionary monetary and fiscal policies adopted by the central banks and financial authorities of some of the world's leading economies. There have also been concerns over unrest in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which have resulted in volatility in the energy and food sectors amongst other markets. We may be affected by economic downturns. A prolonged slowdown in the world economy may lead to a reduced amount of mobile internet advertising, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, a slowdown or disruption in the global economy may have a material and adverse impact on financings available to us. The weakness in the economy could erode investor confidence, which constitutes the basis of the credit market. Turmoil affecting the financial markets and banking system may significantly restrict our ability to obtain financing in the capital markets or from financial institutions on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.

We are subject to numerous U.S. and foreign laws and regulations covering a wide variety of subject matters. New laws and regulations, changes in existing laws and regulations or the interpretation of them, our introduction of new products, or an extension of our business into new areas could increase our future compliance costs, make our products and services less attractive to our users, introduce litigation exposure, or cause us to change or limit our business practices. We may incur substantial expenses to comply with laws and regulations or defend against a claim that we have not complied with them. Further, any failure on our part to comply with any relevant laws or regulations may subject us to significant civil or criminal liabilities, penalties, taxes, fees, costs, reputational harm, competitive damage and negative publicity. The application of existing domestic and international laws and regulations to us relating to issues such as user privacy and data protection, artificial intelligence, security, defamation, pricing, advertising, taxation, gambling, sweepstakes, promotions, consumer protection, artificial intelligence and machine learning, accessibility, content regulation, quality of services, law enforcement demands, telecommunications, mobile, and intellectual property ownership and infringement in many instances is unclear or unsettled. Further, the application to us or our subsidiaries of existing laws regulating or requiring licenses for certain businesses of our advertisers can be unclear. U.S. export control laws and regulations also impose requirements and restrictions on exports to certain nations and persons and on our business. Internationally, we may also be subject to laws regulating our activities in foreign countries and to foreign laws and regulations that are inconsistent from country to country. Any new legislation, in the U.S. or abroad, may be difficult to comply with in a timely and comprehensive manner and may expose our business to increased costs. If the rules, doctrines or currently available defenses change, if international jurisdictions refuse to apply protections similar to those that are currently available in the U.S. or the EU, or if a court were to disagree with our application of those rules to our solutions, our potential liability for information or content created by third parties and posted to our platform could require us to expend significant resources to try to comply with the new rules and implement additional measures to reduce our exposure to such liability or we could incur liability and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed. In addition, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the "DMCA") has provisions that limit, but do not necessarily eliminate, our liability for caching, hosting, listing or linking user-generated materials that infringe copyrights, so long as we comply with the statutory requirements in the DMCA. The Communications Decency Act (the "CDA") further helps to limit our potential liability for certain content uploaded onto our platform by third parties. For example, Section 230 of the CDA provides immunity from liability for providers of an interactive computer service who publish tortious and otherwise illegal content provided by users of the service. While the immunity provisions of the DMCA and the CDA are well established, there are regular cases seeking to limit the application of such immunity. Various U.S. and international laws restrict the distribution of materials considered harmful to children and impose additional restrictions on the ability of online services to collect information from minors. In the area of data protection, every state has passed a law requiring notification, and at times, the provision of identity theft protection, to users when there is a security breach for personal data. We face similar risks and costs as our products and services are offered in international markets and may be subject to additional regulations. In many, but not all, territories outside of the U.S. there are laws similar to the DMCA that exempt us from copyright infringement liability that may arise due to hosting user-uploaded materials. In some countries, particularly in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, these laws are being readjusted and new, and potentially burdensome, constraints are being imposed onto service providers. For example, the European Union's Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the "DSM Directive") is in effect and has been implemented by all EU Member States. The DSM Directive Article 17 removes the shield of the current ‘hosting exemption,' enshrined in the Electronic Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) (the "E-Commerce Directive"), and replaces it with a principle of full liability where "online content sharing service providers" ("OCSSPs") are concerned. This means that OCSSPs will be liable for copyright-protected material uploaded by users and must obtain authorization (i.e., a license) from the relevant rightsholders. However, Article 17 effectively creates a new liability exemption regime for OCSSPs (albeit a more onerous one than is currently provided by the E-Commerce Directive) under which OCSSPs will not be liable for the copyright-protected works that they communicate to the public provided that they cooperate with rightsholders by: - making best efforts to obtain the necessary authorization (i.e., a license);- expeditiously taking down or disabling access to content upon receiving a sufficiently substantiated notice to do so by rightsholders (i.e., similar to the existing ‘notice and take-down' requirements);- making best efforts to prevent future uploads of content in respect of which they have received a notice from rightsholders pursuant to the previous requirement (i.e., a ‘notice and stay down' requirement); and - making best efforts, in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence, to ensure the unavailability of specific works in respect of which rightsholders have provided the ‘relevant and necessary information.' The article also extends any licenses granted to OCSSPs to their users, as long as those users are not acting "on a commercial basis." Additionally, our increased use of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI, in our product offerings presents additional risks. Namely, uncertain legal and regulatory treatment around the provision and use of such technologies, for example in the areas of privacy and intellectual property, may create increased and uncertain litigation exposure, the possibility of regulatory scrutiny, costly compliance requirements and limit or prohibit certain of our product offerings. Compliance with these laws and regulations may be onerous and expensive, and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, further increasing the cost of compliance and the risk of liability. Any such increase in costs or increased risk of liability as a result of changes in these laws and regulations or in their interpretation could individually or in the aggregate make our products and services that use AI technologies less attractive to our users, cause us to change or limit our business practices or affect our financial condition and operating results. Moreover, AI may produce content seen as infringing upon the rights of others, including with respect to copyrights. Additionally, AI may create flawed, biased, harmful, misleading, inaccurate, or unexpected outputs and content, creating risks to our business, partners, and users. Although we have invested and continue to invest in systems and resources, which are intended to ensure that we are compliant with the requirements of the GDPR, CCPA, DMCA, the DSM Directive and other U.S. and international laws relating to, among other things, materials that infringe on copyrights and contain other objectionable content, our systems may not be sufficient or we may unintentionally err and fail to comply with these laws and regulations which could expose us to claims, judgments, monetary liabilities and other remedies, and to limitations on our business practices which could materially adversely affect our business and financial results.

Our advertisers and/or users may not comply with international or domestic laws, including, but not limited to, laws and regulations relating to mobile communications. Failure of our advertisers and/or users to comply with laws or our policies could damage our reputation and expose us to liability under these laws. We may also be liable to third parties for content in the advertisements or content we deliver or distribute if the artwork, text or other content involved violates copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property rights of third parties or if the content is defamatory, unfair and deceptive, or otherwise in violation of applicable laws. Although we generally receive assurance from our advertising partners and users that their advertisements and content, respectively, are lawful and that they have the right to use any copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property included in an advertisement or content, and although we are normally indemnified by the advertisers, a third party or regulatory authority may still file a claim against us. Any such claims could be costly and time consuming to defend and could also hurt our reputation within the mobile advertising industry. Further, if we are exposed to legal liability, we could be required to pay substantial fines or penalties, redesign our business methods, discontinue some of our services or otherwise expend significant resources.

Our products and services depend on mobile app stores and other third parties such as data center service providers, as well as third party cloud infrastructure and service providers, payment aggregators, computer systems, internet transit providers and other communications systems and service providers. Our mobile applications are almost exclusively accessed through and depend on the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store. While our mobile applications are generally free to download from these stores, we offer our users the opportunity to make in-app purchases and/or purchase paid subscriptions. In certain instances, we determine the prices at which these items and subscriptions are sold. These purchases are processed by Google's and Apple's in-app payment and subscription systems. As of July 31, 2024 we paid Google and Apple up to 30% of the revenue we generated across their respective platforms for processing fees. Our revenues and earnings could be negatively impacted should Google or Apple decide to impose higher processing fees. Further, our cashflow may be negatively impacted if either platform changes the timing of their payments to us. While we do not anticipate any interruption in their distribution platforms or ability to accept customer payments, any such disruptions, even temporary, may have material impacts on our business and operations. We are subject to the standard policies and terms of service of third-party platforms, which govern the marketing, promotion, distribution, content and operation of our apps on their platforms. Each platform provider has the discretion to make changes to its operating system, payment services, manner in which their mobile operating system operates as well as change and interpret the terms and conditions of its developer policies. These changes may be harmful to our business and result in a negative outcome. For example, in September 2019, our Zedge App was temporarily removed from Google Play because they asserted that the Zedge App violated their malicious behavior policy. As a result, prospective Android users were prevented from installing our Zedge App, freemium users were unable to convert into paying subscribers and existing users we unable to purchase Zedge Credits. Shortly after the notice was issued, two of our major advertising suppliers ceased serving advertisements to our Zedge App. In addition, Google Play sent a notification to users that had the problematic version of the app on their phone recommending that they uninstall it. We identified the source of the problem as buggy code from a long-term, third-party advertising partner's standard technology integration in our app. We corrected the problem by removing the offensive code, releasing a new version of our app and our Zedge App was reinstated after approximately 72 hours and concurrently the two major advertising suppliers resumed purchasing our advertising inventory. We estimate the immediate financial impact of the suspension resulted in approximately $100,000 in lost revenue and a material decline in MAU with the majority of uninstalls in emerging markets. Such changes could: - make our products and services inaccessible or limit their accessibility;- curtail our ability to distribute and update our applications as we see fit across their platforms;- impose changes in the way in which we monetize our users;- limit the scope of feature enhancements or new features;- decrease or eliminate our ability to market to prospective and existing users; or - cease our ability to collect certain data about users and their respective usage. Google and Apple are able to terminate our distribution agreements with them, without cause, with 30 days prior written notice (to the extent allowed by applicable local law). They also may terminate our agreements with them immediately (unless a longer period is required by applicable law) under certain circumstances, including upon our uncured breach of such agreements. To the extent that they or any other third party platform provider on which we rely make such changes or terminates our agreements with them, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. A platform provider may also change its fee structure to our disadvantage, change how we are able to advertise on the platform, limit how user information is made available to developers, curtail how personal information is used for advertising purposes, or restrict how users can share information with their friends on the platform or across platforms. For example, in April 2021 Apple released iOS 14 which started requiring users to opt in to share their IDFA with app developers, on an app-by-app basis. As a consequence, the ability of advertisers to accurately target and measure their advertising campaigns at the user level becomes significantly more difficult, typically resulting in higher user acquisition costs. Furthermore, both Apple and Google have broad discretion to make changes to their operating systems or payment services or change the manner in which their mobile operating systems function and their respective terms and conditions applicable to the distribution of our applications, including the amount of, and requirement to pay, certain fees associated with purchases required to be facilitated by Apple and Google through our applications, and to interpret their respective terms and conditions in ways that may limit, eliminate or otherwise interfere with our products, our ability to distribute our applications through their stores, our ability to update our applications, including to make bug fixes or other feature updates or upgrades, the features we provide, the manner in which we market our in-app products, our ability to access native functionality or other aspects of mobile devices, and our ability to access information about our users that they collect. To the extent either or both of them do so, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. For example, pursuant to Google's policy whereby only Google Play's in-app billing system could be used for transactions in its store, we were mandated to stop the provision of non-native payment options to our users on Android during 2021, which caused disruptions for users and led to a decline in Paying Users. Since announcing this policy in 2020, following industry pushback and country-specific regulations Google has introduced in select markets the option of "user choice billing," which allows eligible developers to offer users an additional billing system alongside Google Play's billing system, and in the European Economic Area the option for eligible developers to offer users an alternative to Google Play's billing system. We are exploring such solutions on a country-by-country basis. However, as these solutions are in their infancy, they may evolve following subsequent regulatory mandates or organically at Google's behest, and as such we will need to be ready to continuously adapt to such changes. Any deadlines imposed on developers by future iterations of Google's policy will require prompt and active development, and failure to do so may result in the discontinuation of the provision of alternative billing methods to our users. Similarly, Apple is experiencing industry pushback and country-specific regulations. In response to a recent antitrust lawsuit, Apple now allows all digital apps in the United States to include a link to the developer's website to process payments for in-app purchases. Additionally, in the EU, pursuant to the Digital Markets Act, all major app store operators such as Google and Apple will be forced to introduce more country-specific billing policies that allow developers to offer alternative billing methods, and it is expected that other markets may follow suit. Further complicating this landscape, a recent ruling by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in Epic Games v. Google mandates that Google must open its Android app store to third-party competitors for three years, from November 1, 2024 through November 1, 2027, which will likely foster increased competition and could lead to changes in fee structures and app distribution practices. Should we choose to explore such policy initiatives for the benefit of our business and our users, we may potentially become subject to highly nuanced, country-specific billing policies and commissions of major app store operators, we may need to devote more resources and time in creating and managing separate app bundles for each country in which we want to offer alternative billing options, which could become burdensome, and/or we could become subject to higher commissions overall. Furthermore, changes to billing options may cause a disruption to the user journey, which could cause a decrease in paying user conversion rates. Alternatively, choosing not to explore such policy initiatives could present a risk of missed opportunity. Any of the foregoing could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we violate, or a platform provider believes we have violated, its terms of service, the platform provider reserves the right to limit or cease access to their platform. If we are unable to maintain a productive working relationship with any platform distribution and access to our products and services could also be curtailed or permanently disabled. This is especially true in instances where we are dependent on single source providers for their respective services. Any limitation or discontinuation of access to any platform could significantly reduce our ability to distribute and/or provide access to our products to users and would like result in materially and adversely affecting our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our business depends on the availability of mobile app stores and other third party platforms and any outages that these parties experience will likely have a negative impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations or reputation.

We believe that we maintain insurance customary for businesses of our size and type. However, there are types of losses we may incur that cannot be insured against or that we believe are not economically reasonable or practical to insure. In addition, any loss incurred could exceed policy limits and policy payments made to us may not be made on a timely basis. Such losses could adversely affect our business prospects, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.