Latest Q3 financial reports show Catena Media will miss its financial targets which the company largely attributes to the disruption AI has caused in search.
Catena Media has confirmed that 2026 financial targets will not be achieved by the Nasadaq Stockholm listed igaming media group.
The statement comes via a pre-close Q3 trading update, which saw the leadership team underscore new and existing factors impacting Catena full-year 2026 results.
The company disclosed that Q3 corporate revenues declined by 29% to €8.3m (Q3 2025: €11.6m). The slowdown in headline growth sees Catena year-to-date revenues stall at €30m.
Adjusted EBITDA dropped to €0.7m, from €2.9m in Q3 2025. This included a €0.7m benefit from reversing employee bonus accruals. Nine-month adjusted EBITDA fell to €4.6m, from €5.2m.
Management attributed the weaker performance to changes in online search and reduced marketing expenditure by some operator partners.
“Several factors adversely affected operating performance in Q3. Generative search continued to transform how users discover brands online, reducing new traffic across the affiliate industry,” the company stated.
“Catena Media’s traditional search rankings declined, due both to AI-assisted personalised search patterns and also to search engines continuing to elevate lower-relevancy content in search results.”
CPA deals exhausted
Impacting financial results, Catena leadership noted the current commercial model of its media network favoured CPA deals, which had been exposed by a period of weakened traffic and lower seasonal spending of clients.
Catena’s commercial model requires a drastic re-balancing as more than “90% of new customers are acquired under cost-per-acquisition (CPA) agreements” – a factor that leaves the firm with an exhausted recurring revenue stream to cushion a downturn in new business.
Group chief executive Manuel Stan acknowledged this: “This was a weak quarter and our results reflect that. The search landscape is undergoing a rapid and fundamental shift, and as a predominantly CPA-based business our results reflect the effects of these changes immediately and in full.”
No targets met since 2021
Year trading saw Catena place the original financial targets of securing double-digit revenue and adjusted EBITDA in 2025 and 2026. Bottom-line accounts would be strengthened by net interest-bearing debt to adjusted EBITDA of 0–1.75 times.
Year accounts will be further impacted by a non-cash impairment charge of €30m–€35m against intangible assets in Q3, under accounting standard IAS 36. The charge will reduce the “value of assets without representing a cash outflow.”
The setback extends Catena’s failure to achieve its annual organic growth objective, which it last met in 2021.
Having concluded a strategic review in late 2023, Catena pursued a transformation centred on its North American business, followed by the appointment of Manuel Stan as chief executive in 2024.
New streams via TraffiqX
Transformations undertaken since 2023 include the sale of European media assets, releasing cash to reduce debt and fund investment in technology and new revenue streams.
Stan viewed the disappointing quarter as a way to reinforce a strategic change in direction, with Catena seeking to reduce its dependence on search-led customer acquisition.
Leadership has backed new US-designed platform of TraffiqX to develop better localised revenue streams through its and emerging verticals, including prediction markets.
“We are reducing our dependence on search by diversifying our revenue streams, including through our newly announced TraffiqX project and new verticals like prediction markets, and by continuing to build the strength of our brands through investing in customer loyalty programmes. These efforts will be further supported by TraffiqX, the new platform we plan to launch in the first quarter of 2027,” said Stan.
