Nexxen International (NASDAQ:NEXN) reported record first-quarter results for the three months ended March 31, 2026, and raised its full-year revenue outlook, citing stronger programmatic advertising demand, renewed growth in connected TV and early traction from its enterprise sales strategy.
Chief Executive Officer Ofer Druker said the company had a “strong start to the year” and that momentum continued into the second quarter, with Contribution ex-TAC, programmatic revenue and CTV revenue trending ahead of internal expectations after a record April and a strong start to May.
Chief Financial Officer Sagi Niri said the quarter marked “a clear financial inflection point,” with results exceeding both company expectations and Wall Street consensus. He said the performance reflected Nexxen’s shift toward higher-growth programmatic channels and investments in enterprise go-to-market efforts, mobile in-app advertising, CTV, data products and artificial intelligence.
Q1 Results Led by Programmatic, CTV and Mobile
Nexxen reported first-quarter Contribution ex-TAC of $84.5 million, up 13% year over year and a record for the first quarter. Programmatic revenue totaled $81.9 million, up 14% from the prior year period, also a Q1 record.
CTV revenue returned to growth, rising 12% year over year to $29.4 million. Niri said the company saw broad-based strength across programmatic channels, particularly in CTV, mobile, data products and display, with growth across entertainment, retail, finance, government and automotive verticals.
Mobile revenue increased 18% year over year, while desktop revenue rose 3%. Contribution ex-TAC from data products climbed 81%, and display increased 57%. Contribution ex-TAC from private marketplaces, or PMPs, declined 17%. Niri also said non-programmatic business lines, which the company is evaluating for strategic options, declined by about $560,000 year over year, and Nexxen saw softness in the education vertical.
Adjusted EBITDA was $16.3 million, representing a 19% margin as a percentage of Contribution ex-TAC. Non-IFRS diluted earnings per share were $0.06, compared with $0.16 in the first quarter of 2025.
Guidance Raised for Contribution ex-TAC and Programmatic Revenue
Nexxen raised its full-year 2026 guidance for Contribution ex-TAC and programmatic revenue, while maintaining its adjusted EBITDA outlook.
- Contribution ex-TAC is now expected to be between $382 million and $397 million, up from prior guidance of $375 million to $390 million.
- Programmatic revenue is now expected to be between $374 million and $388 million, up from prior guidance of $367 million to $381 million.
- Adjusted EBITDA is still expected to be between $122 million and $132 million, representing about 10% year-over-year growth and a 33% margin at the midpoint.
Niri said the raised outlook reflects first-quarter outperformance, momentum into the second quarter and expected acceleration in the second half of the year. He identified enterprise adoption, greater end-to-end platform utilization, accelerating CTV revenue, scaling mobile in-app contribution and data revenue momentum as expected growth drivers.
During the question-and-answer session, Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett asked why guidance implies slower full-year Contribution ex-TAC growth than the 13% growth reported in the first quarter, given management’s commentary about acceleration. Druker said Nexxen was taking a conservative approach due to broader market uncertainty, adding that the company could reassess guidance later if momentum continues and market conditions remain stable.
Niri added that the guidance reflects “a prudent approach” given the macroeconomic and advertising market environment.
Nexxen Highlights Enterprise Sales and AI Investments
Druker said Nexxen has already onboarded more new enterprise clients in 2026 than it did during all of 2025. He said each of those customers has the potential to generate more than $1 million of annual spend, based on current expectations.
Management attributed the enterprise momentum to improvements in Nexxen’s demand-side platform, or DSP, deeper integration with data assets, new AI capabilities and access to CTV and mobile in-app inventory. Druker said the company invested in enterprise teams and go-to-market strategy in late 2025 through new hires and internal resource shifts.
Druker also emphasized nexAI, the company’s branded suite of AI capabilities, as central to Nexxen’s strategy. He said Nexxen is using AI across planning, activation and optimization, while maintaining transparency and customer control. The company said its discovery assistant helped customers reduce audience research time by more than 40% year over year in the first quarter, while enhancements to its DSP assistant drove more than 90% year-over-year efficiency gains across key workflows.
In response to a question from BTIG analyst Tyler DiMatteo, Niri said most incremental investment dollars are going toward AI capabilities, data and platform innovation, with additional investment in sales and marketing to support adoption.
CTV Home Screen Product Positioned as Growth Driver
Nexxen highlighted its TV Home Screen offering as a major CTV growth initiative. Druker described it as an industry-first programmatic Smart TV home screen advertising solution that allows advertisers to buy high-attention, non-skippable CTV inventory through existing programmatic workflows.
The company initially launched with programmatic access to more than 25 million VIDAA-powered home screens and said it has since expanded through partnerships with additional original equipment manufacturers. Nexxen said it secured programmatic access to TCL native on-screen inventory globally, including exclusivity on select native placements in the U.S. and Canada on TCL Android TV devices, and gained programmatic access to TiVo EDGE native on-screen inventory in North America and the U.K. These partnerships added nearly 10 million devices, according to Druker.
Nexxen also said it expanded its partnership with LG and is testing activation of LG native on-screen inventory through its platform. Druker said The Trade Desk, StackAdapt, Basis, H&L and others are onboarding or expected to scale spend through the offering.
In response to Raymond James analyst Andrew Marok, Druker said the market opportunity for home screen advertising is “huge,” citing Nielsen studies that consumers spend about 10.5 minutes per day exposed to the TV operating system interface before choosing content. He said moving that inventory into programmatic channels could provide incremental revenue for OEM partners.
Capital Allocation and VIDAA Investment
Nexxen used $21 million in net cash from operating activities in the first quarter, compared with generating $19.3 million in the first quarter of 2025. Niri said the year-over-year decrease was largely due to working capital changes, including collections expected to normalize in the second quarter, along with strategic investments.
As of March 31, the company had $94.6 million in cash and cash equivalents, no long-term debt and $50 million available under its revolving credit facility.
Nexxen repurchased about 1.1 million shares during the quarter for approximately $7.2 million. From March 2022 through the end of the first quarter of 2026, the company repurchased approximately 40% of its outstanding shares for about $265.3 million. Nexxen completed its prior $20 million repurchase program during the quarter and has authorization for a new program of up to $40 million.
Niri said the company remains on track to invest an additional $15 million in VIDAA in the third quarter of 2026, bringing its total investment to $60 million for an approximately 6% equity stake. Druker said the investment provides value through both the commercial relationship and the potential equity upside tied to VIDAA’s growth in Smart TV distribution.
Management also pointed to the FIFA World Cup and U.S. midterm elections as potential second-half revenue opportunities, particularly through Nexxen TV Home Screen, Nexxen Sports, proprietary data and political advertising solutions.
About Nexxen International (NASDAQ:NEXN)
Tremor International Ltd provides end-to-end software platform that enables advertisers to reach relevant audiences and publishers. The company's demand side platform (DSP) offers full-service and self-managed marketplace access to advertisers and agencies to execute their digital marketing campaigns in real time across various ad formats. Its sell supply side platform (SSP) provides access to data and a comprehensive product suite to drive inventory management and revenue optimization. The company also offers data management platform solution, which integrates DSP and SSP solutions enabling advertisers and publishers to use data from various sources in order to optimize results of their advertising campaigns.
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