Development of performance indicators

Development of performance indicators

In the 2018/2019 financial year, Borussia Dortmund's financial performance indicators – revenue, result from operating activities (EBIT), operating result (EBITDA), net profit/net loss for the year, cash flows from operating activities and free cash flow – were as follows:

Revenue

Revenue amounted to EUR 489,524 thousand in the reporting period. In the Annual Report as at 30 June 2018, Borussia Dortmund forecast revenue of EUR 425,000 thousand for the current financial year.

EBITDA

The operating result in the current financial year amounted to EUR 115,983 thousand; the forecast for the full financial year in the Annual Report dated 30 June 2018 had projected EBITDA to exceed EBIT by approximately EUR 75,000 thousand. This forecast was exceeded due to transfer income.

EBIT / Net profit/loss for the year

The result from operating activities (EBIT) for the period from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 amounted to EUR 23,501 thousand and the net profit for the year totalled EUR 17,391 thousand.

The report on expected developments dated 30 June 2018 forecasted net profit and positive EBIT in the low seven-figure range for the full financial year. This forecast was exceeded on the back of unexpectedly high transfer income.

Cash flows

Cash flows from operating activities amounted to EUR 144,525 thousand (previous year: EUR 170,361 thousand). Borussia Dortmund forecasted as at 30 June 2018 that it would generate cash flows from operating activities by EUR 100,000 thousand.

Free cash flow

Free cash flow at the end of the 2018/2019 financial year amounted to EUR 5,201 thousand (previous year: EUR 27,635 thousand). Borussia Dortmund forecasted as at 30 June 2018 that it would generate free cash flow by EUR 15,000 thousand.

Overview of financial performance indicators:

Development of non-financial performance indicators

The club's success on the pitch is a trending topic on social media and continues to drive the success of Borussia Dortmund's various digital platforms.

With more than 15,000,000 followers, Facebook remains by far the club's most important social media platform despite a slight drop in followers as compared with the end of the third quarter. Borussia Dortmund's followers on Instagram continued to increase steadily, rising by more than 500,000 since the third quarter. With 7,707,729 followers as at 30 June 2019, this marks its highest number since joining the social network and implies growth of more than 8% since the beginning of the year. This trend is also reflected in the club's popularity on YouTube, which is soaring. In the fourth quarter, Borussia Dortmund joined the Chinese video platform TikTok, which primarily caters to a teenage audience. The channel is extremely popular and shows the largest growth overall with 175,000 new users.

Elsewhere on social media, the numbers were also positive. Borussia Dortmund added just under 100,000 new followers on SinaWeibo thanks to the club tailoring its content strategy to China. A total of 30,000 new followers had been added as at the end of the second quarter. Thus, Borussia Dortmund's SinaWeibo's account was one of the five fastest-growing profiles of all European football clubs in China. The trend also extends to the Chinese social media platform Douyin, which is used to create and share short video clips and targets younger audiences. Borussia Dortmund has more than 55,000 followers on the platform. Borussia Dortmund's new English-language Twitter channel also set new standards, with three tweets alone generating more than 15 million impressions.