AVG: Feb 1st Google Toolbar Policy Updates Threaten AVG`s

Transcription

AVG: Feb 1st Google Toolbar Policy Updates Threaten AVG`s
January 31, 2013
AVG: Feb 1st Google Toolbar Policy Updates Threaten
AVG's Growth Engine, Signal Steep Downside




AVG Technologies’ (“AVG”) Platform business (i.e. the internet search product), including its browser toolbar, has
been its most successful program to monetize its user base and has been AVG’s primary growth engine, having
grown from 8% of sales in 2008 to 45% of sales in 2012. We believe this revenue stream is in jeopardy.
Google, AVG’s primary search partner and currently the source of substantially all of AVG’s Platform-derived
revenue, is on the verge of announcing an update to its toolbar policy, something that has not been widely
followed or discussed by market participants. Furthermore, few, if any, analysts on the street appear to be aware
of the upcoming changes; if they are, they have decided not to publish or update their models accordingly. We
believe that current consensus revenue and profit projections for AVG are severely inflated.
Imminent changes to Google’s policies could dramatically lower the rate at which users install the AVG toolbar and
consent to its default search option, at least slowing, but more likely severely reversing growth in AVG’s Platform
business.
The market appears to have misunderstood the significance of AVG’s recent partnership with Yahoo, with the
stock rallying close to 50% on the news. We believe this partnership was formed in desperation and anticipation of
imminent Google toolbar policy updates. While AVG has added Yahoo as a backup monetization partner, Yahoo’s
ability to generate revenue for its partners is far below Google’s, and if the day comes that it has to flex its
reliance on Yahoo search, AVG’s revenues will likely contract in a major way.
We believe the equity is highly overvalued at current levels, with an intrinsic value of $8.50$10/share, 30-40% below current trading levels.
Disclaimer: This research report expresses Prescience Investment Group LLC’s opinions. Use of the research produced by Prescience Investment Group LLC is at your own risk.
This is a short-biased report and you should assume the author of this report and its clients and/or investors hold a short position and derivatives tied to the security of AVG
Technologies N.V.. that will benefit from a decline in the price of the common stock. Following publication of the report, the author (including members, partners, affiliates,
employees, and/or consultants) along with its clients and/or investors intend to continue transacting in the securities covered therein, and may be long, short, or neutral at
any time hereafter regardless of the initial recommendation. The author of this report has obtained all information contained herein from sources believed to be accurate
and reliable and has included references where available and practical. However, such information is presented “as is,” without warranty of any kind– whether express or
implied. The author of this report makes no representation, express or implied, as to the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any such information or with regard to the
results to be obtained from its use. Forward looking statement and projections are inherently susceptible to uncertainty and involve many risks (known and unknown) that
could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice, and the author does not undertake to
update or supplement this report or any of the information contained herein. Prescience Investment Group LLC is not a broker/dealer or financial advisor and nothing
contained herein should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment or security mentioned in this report. You should do your own research and due
diligence before making any investment decision with respect to securities covered herein, including, but not limited to, the suitability of any transaction to your risk
tolerance and investment objectives and consult your own tax, financial and legal experts as warranted. READ THE IMPORTANT LEGAL DISCLAIMER ON THE NEXT PAGE.
Legal Disclaimer:
This research report expresses our opinions, which we have based upon certain facts, all of which are set out in this research
report. Any investment involves substantial risks, including complete loss of capital. Any forecasts or estimates are for
illustrative purpose only and should not be taken as limitations of the maximum possible loss or gain. Any information
contained in this report may include forward-looking statements, expectations, and projections. You should assume these types
of statements, expectations, and projections may turn out to be incorrect. Use of Prescience Investment Group LLC’s research
is at your own risk. You should do your own research and due diligence before making any investment decision with respect
to securities covered herein.
You should assume that as of the publication date of any report or letter, Prescience Investment Group LLC (possibly
along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or
investors has a short position in all stocks (and/or are long puts/short call options of the stock) covered herein, including
without limitation AVG Technologies N.V. and therefore stands to realize significant gains in the event that the price
of stock declines. Following publication of any report or letter, we intend to continue transacting in the securities
covered therein, and we may be long, short, or neutral at any time hereafter regardless of our initial recommendation.
This is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security, nor shall any security be offered or sold to any
person, in any jurisdiction in which such offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. Prescience
Investment Group LLC is not registered as an investment advisor.
To the best of our ability and belief, all information contained herein is accurate and reliable, and has been obtained from
public sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, and who are not insiders or connected persons of the stock covered herein
or who may otherwise owe any fiduciary duty or duty of confidentiality to the issuer, or to any other person or entity that was
breached by the transmission of information to Prescience Investment Group LLC. However, such information is presented
“as is,” without warranty of any kind – whether express or implied.
Prescience Investment Group LLC makes no
representation, express or implied, as to the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any such information or with regard to
the results to be obtained from its use.
All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice, and Prescience Investment Group LLC does not undertake to
update or supplement this report or any of the information contained herein.
Introduction
In the past decade, Internet search engines became one of the main revenue sources for software developers. The
tremendous jump in search-engine advertising created a revenue stream for many software companies using the profitsharing model. This model of directing users to search engines allowed many software developers to transition to a
freeware model and helped them to grow. AVG is one of these developers.
AVG produces a suite of software security products, some which generate Subscription Revenue and others that are
distributed for free (i.e. freeware). AVG’s hope is that its users download the internet search-based products (AVG Secure
Search) that it bundles with its security products, so as to monetize its user base. In the event that an AVG user uses AVG’s
secure search functionality and clicks on a Google or Yahoo ad or sponsored link, the user generates money for that search
engine, which is shared with AVG. AVG’s Platform-derived Revenue is revenue AVG earns from its contracts with search
engine providers.
Historically, AVG worked exclusively with one search engine provider at a time – either Google or Yahoo. It had an exclusive
revenue share agreement with Yahoo from February 2008 to November 2010, and in November 2010 switched to begin
working exclusively with Google. That contract expired in November 2012; in negotiating for a contract renewal with
Google in Q4’2012, AVG sought non-exclusivity, was granted it, executed the new contract, and went on to engage in a
second revenue-sharing agreement with Yahoo.
Subscription Revenue accounted for ~55% of 2012 sales. AVG’s Platform business (i.e. the internet search product),
including its browser toolbar, has been its most successful program to monetize its user base and has been AVG’s growth
engine, having grown from 8% of sales in 2008 to 45% of sales in 2012.
The immense success of the Platform business can be attributed to a very high rate of toolbar attachment to platform
users; and, that, in hand, can be attributed to what seems to be questionable business practices. As we will demonstrate in
the sections that follow, AVG appears relentlessly focused on growth, but at the expense of the user’s experience.
AVG Toolbar and Default Search
The below is a screen shot taken from one step in the process of installing an AVG antivirus program. It is a user’s consent
screen, which if clicked through hastily, enables AVG to install its toolbar and Secure Search program on the user’s PC.
Figure 2: Installation Process; all Opt-out
Note that all the features are “opt-out”; in other words, the boxes are already checked such that the default is to install
AVG Search. In many instances, AVG Security Toolbar is often installed unexpectedly, as mentioned in this recent public
rant on ZDnet.com. The author states the following:
I recently installed a software (PowerISO) and without consent it installed AVG toolbar and other software on my
system which has completely modified my computer without my knowledge.
My browser (Chrome) now goes to your AVG homepage and Google search has also been replaced by AVG. The
same is happening in Firefox and Internet Explorer. This has caused me hours in productivity and unnecessary
frustration. The same is also happening after I uninstalled your toolbar (from inside Program and features)
I did NOT want this and modifying my computer like this is totally unacceptable. Your call yourself a anti-virus
company while in fact the behavior is exactly that of a mal-ware which hijacks your browser and causes problems.
This is the type of software that sneaks onto users' computers because they hit the "Next" button without reading.
Some would argue that this is their fault, and while I understand that point, it's still completely unacceptable to
have checkboxes like this one checked by default…. You had the audacity to change my settings in the first place
just because I was tricked into clicking a shady checkbox, why should I have to read a FAQ and manually revert
them after? Do you have no respect for your user's time? I'm sure the programmer who wrote the program to
change my settings in the first place could definitely write a uninstaller to revert them too. But you would not do
that. It's a shame that of all the unscrupulous companies who would use such ploys, an anti-virus company like AVG
is doing it instead! I'm sorry but this is just too fishy.
Even though the user’s consent to install the AVG toolbar or default search is obtained during the installation process (in
the user clicking the ‘next’ button), thousands of complaints litter the internet regarding AVG requiring the user to opt-out.
It is thought of as a shady practice. Many users, either pressed for time or not having an understanding of what they are
truly installing, unwittingly clicking the “next” button to complete the antivirus installation.
Although the uninstall seems easy enough, thousands more complaints litter the internet complaining that default search is
has nested in their browsers and cannot be removed (Google search “AVG Default Search” or visit RipOffReport).
Furthermore, even when a user goes to uninstall, AVG recommends that its default search remain on your system – another
opt-out! This is a last ditch effort to hold on to the user. But what for?
Figure 3: Uninstall Process
Why try to hold onto the user at this stage, when he/she is requesting an uninstall? When searching a common key word
such as “Kim Kardashian” you’ll notice a key difference between an AVG Search and a Google Search:
Figure 4: AVG Secure Search (isearch.avg.com)Figure 4: AVG Secure Search
(isearch.avg.com)
AVG search has 3 sponsored ads at the top and 3 sponsored ads at the bottom of the search results page, a total of six
sponsored Ads. Typically, Google displays only 2 or 3 sponsored ad listings, contained in a yellow, highlighted area.
Figure 5: AVG Secure Search results (note the 3 sponsored ads at top and 3 at bottom)
AVG’s sponsored links are not contained in a highlighted box, potentially a clever trick to present sponsored ads as organic
search results.
Based on a study conducted by Search Engine Watch, 53% of Organic Search clicks go to the first link. Search engine users
overwhelmingly click on organic search results on Google and Bing by a margin of 94% to 6%. By presenting them in the
manner Google displays organic search results, AVG appears to be trying to dupe its users into clicking into the sponsored
links, for which it would be compensated.
Not Just a Checkbox: Opt-outs Have Reliable Effects on User Outcomes
AVG and others in the toolbar industry rely on users skipping over the pre-ticked checkboxes to achieve their desired install
rates. They do it because it works. After all, if opt-ins snared users at rates similar to opt-out, why wouldn’t they avoid the
issue and default to opt-in?
At nearly every opportunity, consumers will “opt-in” at rates far less than those at which they “opt-out.” This well-known
behavioral phenomenon appears in many contexts and has been the basis of consumer protection laws and FTC
enforcement actions – from overdraft fees to cell phone billing to online, post-transaction marketing. Opt-ins are the legal
default in many arenas for the purpose of consumer protection.
Further evidence of the importance of opt-in vs. opt-out in decision psychology is observed in the following:
 Email: It is well known in email marketing that “opt-out” lists perform far worse—in terms of emails opened and
quantity of unsubscribe requests received—as compared to “opt-in” lists, as opt-out recipients never explicitly
requested to receive the messages. The gold standard in email is “double opt-in”: First the user must request to
be subscribed to a list, and must later confirm his desire once more.
 Banking: Despite aggressive promotion and, to some, misleading marketing campaigns, only 33% of consumers
opted in to overdraft protection once the Federal Reserve began to require it.
 Organ Donation: Even the most ethically fraught of decisions, such as whether to donate your organs, is heavily
influenced by the default choice, whether it is opt-out or opt-in. Quoting an article published in Science Magazine,
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, discussed what he called one of his favorite graphs in all of social
science:
Figure 6: Rates of Consent to Organ Donation, Opt-Out vs. Opt-In
AVG’s rate of toolbar attachment to platform users is likely to crater if they are mandated to make opt-in the default, as
opposed to opt-out. If the company were confident that users desired its toolbar and default search, it would happily
default to opt-in, from opt-out, in light of the damage to its brand equity that is resulting from thousands of documented
user complaints.
“Don’t be Evil” – Google Toolbar Policy Update Coming on Feb 1
The slogan “Don’t be evil” is ingrained in Google’s DNA and is evident in the continuous evolution of its policies and
algorithms, a devotion to constantly improving the user experience. It frequently updates its search services (e.g. Panda
and Penguin updates), policies, and AdSense products. Very recently on Google’s Q4 earnings call, Nikesh Arora, Senior
Vice President, stated that during the fourth quarter of 2012 Google made changes in policy and enforcement that
improved CPCs and search quality:
These enforcements had the effect of reducing ad clicks on the sites of certain AdSense for search partners. These
policy updates are part of our ongoing work to improve user experiences on Google and on site in terms of using
Google Search. Since these policies improve the experience of both users and advertisers, we firmly believe they are
good for our business in the long-term… we’ve always had a policy. The policy has been that we want to make sure
that whatever ads are presented in whatever way our traffic is routed to ads, it is done in the best interest of the
user and we began to notice that they were sites and pages whereas we had too many ads in a page, so it became
more restrictive and updated our policies for better enforcement and that has resulted in higher quality results for
end users, it has reduced in some cases the monetization that some of our partners are seeing as a result of this
enforcement and hence you are seeing the impact on the numbers. We just announced this policy in the past
quarter that we just went through, so you are going to see the impact over the next few quarters. We've also
implemented more stringent policies around downloadable apps, and that's why I think both those effects are
going to stay with us for the year, but we think in the long-term is the right answer for us, it's the right answer for
users and it's right answer for advertisers, so we think it's a good thing to do.
We should note that many companies have built their entire business models on monetizing Google search
results. Although Google’s best intention is to improve the user experience, sometimes this comes at the expense of its
search or AdSense partners. One such partner Local.com (“LOCM”) was significantly negatively impacted by the abovementioned policy changes, as reported in a press release distributed on January 24, 2013; the company revised its fourth
quarter guidance to revenue of $20.9M, versus prior guidance of $22–23m, and adjusted EPS of ($0.04), versus prior
guidance of $0.00. The reduction in second half growth was attributed to “unexpected revenue per click (RPC) declines
from our main ad partner coupled with previously announced fourth quarter ad policy changes.” Local.com was impacted
significantly, and per Google, may be impacted for the next several quarters.
Google policy changes can have nasty consequences for companies reliant on Google-sourced revenue that get caught in
the crosshairs. Given its seemingly questionable business practices in getting users of its antivirus products to download the
hard-to-get-rid-of, revenue-generating AVG toolbar, might AVG be one of those companies? Undoubtedly, yes. Might
AVG’s primary growth engine, its Platform search business, be put to the test? Absolutely, yes.
Google is on the verge of announcing an update to its toolbar policy, something that has not been widely followed or
discussed. We first learned of this from a Bloomberg article published on December 16, 2012. The article contends that
Babylon and Perion, two Israeli companies whose businesses highly depend on monetization of the Google Toolbar, would
be negatively impacted by the impending policy update:
Calcalist reported today companies such as Babylon and Perion Network may see a negative impact from Google’s
effort to keep companies from stealthily adding options to users’ toolbars when they download software.”
We learned of the date of the toolbar policy change, February 1, 2013, in reading another Bloomberg piece, in which Perion
CEO Josef Mandelbaum stated, “Perion was asked to make the changes, which come into force Feb. 1, to guarantee
transparency”. The Google Toolbar policy change was even brought up during Yahoo’s 4Q12 earnings conference call by
Jason Helfstein at Oppenheimer & Co.:
…I want to ask about Google's pending Toolbar change. It would seem that's probably a positive benefit to Yahoo!
and Bing with respect to how the policies are different. So can you comment if there's any expectation for a lift for
that?
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer rightly responded, “On the Toolbar change from Google, we'd be remiss to offer comment on
another company's product, so I'm not going to comment further there.” Piecing all the excerpts together, we know that
the Google Toolbar policy change is coming and that it will most likely reduce new installs, given that it will force
“transparency” and is designed to keep companies from “stealthily” adding toolbars; we also know it will take effect on
February 1, 2013.
Google’s policy updates are aimed at increasing transparency for users that download 3rd party software. Although it is not
clear exactly what the rule changes will look like, we do know they are intended to enrich the user experience. We also
know that amongst the biggest sources of user complaints are the dubious methods used by companies such as AVG to
ensure their default search and toolbar extensions get installed. Looking at the Mozilla Firefox support site, many are
labeling AVG’s default search as malware. As previously discussed, because they are all “opt-out” (i.e. users manually have
to uncheck the install boxes), and most users usually zoom through the installation process, scores of them have
unexpectedly installed unwanted toolbars and have had their internet browser’s homepage hijacked. And many users have
documented their complaints that these companies have made it incredibly challenging to remove the toolbars.
I got this AVG nightmare after installing Firefox . I wasted 4 hours of my life trying to disable it. I did a regedit, and
removed it from my system, and it still hijacked my internet explorer. After countless hours, and support from the
entire internet community, i was able to disable it from hijacking my browser, but could not remove it somehow,
the avg search engine remove button is disabled.I can remove anything but I can't remove the Avg search engine
WTF??? any way to disable it, Go to Control panel- internet options- manage add ons-select AVG search engineright click, disable it. if you can remove it, do It!!! THERE ARE SOME MANY FREE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE OUT THERE,
DO NOT DOWNLOAD AVG, IT IS A FREAKIN' VIRUS!!!!!! i also DELETED firefox, until they can figure out how to
manage their freakin' malware extensions.
Like Babylon and Perion’s, AVG’s growth ambitions are wholly dependent on its ability to monetize the Google Toolbar. But
in December 2012, AVG’s stock price significantly appreciated when it announced a search partnership agreement had been
executed with Yahoo. On the associated conference call, management stated that they simply looked at this deal as
“derisking revenue concentration” but that it wouldn't “necessarily add any incremental revenue”:
…the search diversification strategy allows us to diversify at a user level. It's not necessarily tied to geos, meaning
that I can have 2 or 3 providers within any given geo. And so with that, it would mean that we would decide which
search to distribute to any given customer. Now it's important to note that we won't mix the search results so that
they get a mixed feed. They will either be, at this point in time, either a Yahoo! customer … or a Google customer
exclusively.
Since November 2010, AVG has used Google exclusively; and, it is widely recognized that Google’s payout ratio in search is
second to none. In fact, AVG themselves saw their revenue per active platform user double when they switched from
Yahoo to Google as their search partner back in November 2010, jumping from $0.51 in 2010 to $0.94 in 2011 (AVG 20F,
12/31/2011, p.61). One expects a transition back to Yahoo to work similarly in reverse.
Second-sourcing an inferior Yahoo search product with lower monetization rates goes against industry trends. AVG is
preparing for Google toolbar policy changes, and we believe it is desperate for a solution to what is likely to manifest itself
as a steep dive in the expected revenue growth rate. We believe a more correct market response to the announcement of a
deal with Yahoo is hard-selling, not bidding up, AVG stock, right when the company’s prospects are subject to greatest
levels of uncertainty.
What if the GOOG policy were to move to more consent based, opt-in
versus “opt-out”
If the GOOG policy updates mandate the toolbar companies adjust their methods of obtaining user consent from optout to opt-in, AVG’s new user installs would be dramatically impacted and search traffic would fall precipitously. Further, if
the internet community regards these toolbars and ‘hijacked home pages’ as malware, why would anyone install them?
Imagine, if an internet user is looking to download free AVG anti-virus software, why would he or she want to install 3rd
party search tools? All browsers including Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer have search already built into the address
bar. Why install a cumbersome 3rd party search when there is no value-add? An opt-out policy is likely to impact new user
installs by at least 50%. This would have significant impact on AVG (whose fastest growing segment is its search-related
Platform business), BBYL.IT (almost all its business is search) and PERI (more than 60% of sales from search).
Perion’s CEO has come out and said these policy updates won’t impact them. However, AVG and BBYL.IT management has
said nothing. Since the new GOOG policy changes will be announced Feb 1, 2013, no one knows exactly what will. But we
have collected a great amount of data, and are confident in our assessment that the impact is likely to be a big negative for
these companies, especially given what we have assessed throughout this report as questionable, user-damaging business
practices – exactly what Google intends to put a halt to. I revert to the example of LOCM, which although in the display
business, was hurt by the display ad policy update recently enforced by GOOG. I am sure LOCM was given pre-warning by
Google of the new policy changes coming down the hatch prior to being implementation (in fact, they revealed as much in
their 3Q12 earnings announcement and 3Q12 10Q, warning of changes by their key traffic and monetization partner,
Google). This would have given the company ample time to prepare etc, and yet still, they missed guidance.
Eventually all of these companies will either bust or figure out a way to work with new Google policies. But down the road,
these policies are bound to get updated again, and then these companies will be impacted again.
Regardless, we are in the now, and right now we know Google’s desire for its partners is to be more transparent (whether
or not an “opt-out” model is rolled out) with the users of their products, and from that perspective, whatever comes is
highly likely to impact the growth engines of many of these companies in the short-term.
AVG’s Revenue Growth Expectations Warrant Reduction of 40-50%
Should the upcoming policy changes materialize as we expect, there are two scenarios that could play out for AVG:
A. Policy changes do take place, and AVG sticks with Google as a revenue partner, but fewer downloaders install the
toolbar as a result of the switch to opt-in.
B. Policy changes do take place, and AVG switches to Yahoo as a partner as a result. Yahoo will then allow current
practices (opt-out) to continue, and it will monetize each search at rates 50% that of Google.
In either case, we expect both revenues and EBITDA are likely to fall short of consensus estimates. Per Bloomberg,
consensus estimates of 2013 sales and EBITDA are approximately $403M and $117M, respectively. JPM projects that 2013
Platform Revenue (revenues from search monetization) will be $195M. These figures do not take into account the likely
effects of the Feb 1, 2013 Google policy changes, and few of the analysts on the street appear to be aware of the upcoming
changes; if they are, have decided not to publish or update their models. As noted above, Jason Helfstein at Oppenheimer
& Co. raised the issue of these changes on the recent 4Q12 Yahoo earnings call, but, unfortunately, he does not cover AVG.
We’ve derived our revenue projections for the two above scenarios using the below critical assumptions:
(1) Quarterly churn rate for the current install base (installed prior to Feb 1, 2013): It is true that, even with the new
policy change, AVG can rely on the existing installed base of users to maintain some portion of their platform revenue
stream. Unfortunately, churn rates in the toolbar industry are exceedingly high. Guy Malachi, Chief Geek at Conduit, a large
privately-held toolbar vendor, estimated in an answer on Quora that the typical lifespan of a toolbar is around 2 months on
the low end to just over a year on the high end. A toolbar lifespan of just over a year translates to roughly a 35%/quarter
churn rate. For conservatism, we’ll assume a quarterly churn rate for existing customers of less than 15%.
(2) Quarterly churn rate for new users (installed after Feb 1, 2013): Because the new Google Toolbar policies are more
transparent and consent-based, users who specifically opt-in to install the AVG Toolbar would be more likely remain users
longer. As a result, one would expect lower churn as compared to today’s installed base of opt-out users who may have
installed the toolbar unknowingly. We therefore apply a lower churn rate to new, opt-in users. The model assumes a
quarterly churn rate of less than 8% for these new users going forward.
(3) Opt-in rate: The opt-in rate is measured as a percentage of the total new installs: the fraction of the total users
installing the software that also choose to install the toolbar. To be conservative, we estimate an opt-in rate of 65%. In
reality, this figure will likely be far lower.
(4) Google monetization versus Yahoo: It is well known in the industry that Yahoo generates significantly less revenue on
average for its search traffic than does Google (we have heard that Yahoo monetizes at ~50% less than Google, and perhaps
worse in international markets). There are a number of reasons for this, including a lower average cost per click. The model
assumes Yahoo monetizes at a rate that is 50% of what Google achieves.
Using the above assumptions and running sensitivity analysis on the opt-in rate and Yahoo’s level of monetization (as
compared to Google’s), we estimate 2013 Platform-derived revenue ($MM):
Scenarios A and B both yield a revenue projection substantially lower than JP Morgan’s forecast for 2013 platform
revenues. The key drivers, unsurprisingly, are the change in opt-in rates and the gap between Yahoo’s and Google’s
monetization capability. For scenarios A and B, the model predicts a range for 2013 revenue of between $36M and $75M,
respectively, again using conservative assumptions. At the low end (Scenario B), AVG remains with Google as a search
partner, but suffers reduced toolbar installs as the opt-in rate could be closer to 25% (or less) due to new policy changes. At
the high end (Scenario A), if AVG decides to maintain its search traffic by switching to Yahoo as a search partner—allowing
it to maintain default install rates via opt-out vs. opt-in—its monetization rate could decline ~50% as compared to
Google. At a 65% opt-in rate and monetization = 50% of today’s level, revenues hit $75M.
No matter whether the upper or lower bound seems more likely—be it $36M (opt-in =25% and monetization = 100%) or
$75M (opt-in = 65% and monetization = 50%)—the company’s platform revenues could significantly miss JPM’s 2013
estimates, which we assume are representative of the street’s consensus. We suspect AVG management may have
conducted a similar scenario analysis and thus announced the surprising Yahoo search partnership in Dec 2012.
JPM estimates that 2013 revenues for AVG’s subscription and platform base business are approximately $212M and $195M
respectively for a total topline of $407M. We estimate the 2013 revenue range between $248M and $287M. Current
consensus 2013 EBITDA margins = 29% and EV/EBITDA = 7.39x. Applying the consensus EBITDA margin and multiple to our
revenue projections results in an estimated EBITDA range of between $71M and $83M, and enterprise value between
$530M and $614M. Thus, the implied market capitalization and target price would between $399M and $569M, or
$7.34/share and $10.28/share respectively.
The current share price is $14.65. Based on the Google policy change on Feb 1, 2013 and coming browser changes (see
appendix), we believe the shares should be trading between $7.34 and $10.28. We encourage the reader to conduct his or
her analysis. The figures are summarized below:
Scenario A
Scenario B
Platform Revenue
Subscription Revenue
$ 35.5
$ 74.6
$ 212.0
$ 212.0
Target Revenue
$ 247.5
$ 286.6
2013 EV/EBITDA
2013 EBITDA Margin
Basic Shares (MM)
2013 EBITDA (MM)
Enterprise Value (MM)
Cash ($MM)
Debt
Mktcap
Basic Shares
Target Price
Current Share Price
Downside to From Level
7.39x
29.0%
54.38
$
71.78 $
530.41725
86.7
152.9
464.21725
54.38
$8.54
$14.82
-42.40%
7.39x
29.0%
54.38
83.11
614.21246
86.7
152.9
548.01246
55.38
$9.90
$14.82
-33.23%
Appendix 1:
It’s Not Just Opt-Out vs. Opt-in: AVG is Being Evicted from its Market
Opportunities
Beyond Google’s forthcoming switch to potentially make users explicitly “opt-in” to download associated
toolbars, other browser and operating system changes might similarly diminish install and retention rates.
A recent article in ZDNet lays out the coming changes. First, “[b]eginning with Internet Explorer 9, new toolbars
and other add-ons are disabled by default. You must specifically enable them before they’re active.” Similarly,
“Mozilla Firefox has a similar add-on approval feature.”
More worrisome for toolbar vendors, Chrome 25, released in beta on Jan 14, 2013, makes several highly
significant changes to how extensions can be installed/activated.
 Previously, it had been possible for 3rd party applications (like AVG) to silently install extensions into
Chrome on Windows using the registry. As Google’s blog notes, “[T]his feature has been widely abused
by third parties to silently install extensions into Chrome without proper acknowledgment from users.”
As a result, such silent installs will now be disallowed.
 New extensions installed by 3rd party programs will be disabled by default. Users now have to click on
chrome menu, where they are presented with the option to enable the extension or remove it from
their computer.

In addition, all extensions previously installed using external deployment options will be automatically
disabled. Chrome will show a one-time prompt to allow the re-enabling of any of the extensions.
In 2012, Chrome became the most popular browser worldwide (and continues to gain marketshare):
Given how complex it is today for users to remove AVG’s toolbars (6-9 specific steps) vs. a one-click uninstall, it’s
hard to imagine that these changes won’t impact the rates at which users install and keep the company’s
platform toolbars running.
Appendix 2: