Creative Realities (NASDAQ:CREX) outlined its digital signage and retail media strategy, highlighting new restaurant customers, ongoing deployments and management’s expectations for revenue and profitability growth through 2027.
The company said it provides digital signage and media solutions for enterprise customers across retail, convenience stores, automotive, lottery, stadiums and entertainment venues. Its revenue comes from recurring software-as-a-service subscriptions, support and creative services, media and advertising sales, and hardware sales.
Under its model, customers generally own the screens while Creative Realities supplies cloud-connected software and related services. The company said it typically targets customers with at least 500 locations or screens, or the potential to reach that scale.
New Restaurant Contracts and Enterprise Customer Base
During the presentation, the company announced agreements with restaurant chains Zaxby’s and Qdoba. Creative Realities said it converted all 1,200 Zaxby’s locations to its software within 30 days, with the conversion completed about a week and a half before the event. It expects to complete Qdoba’s U.S. conversion by the end of November.
The company also cited deployments with Dairy Queen, Panera, Shake Shack, A&W Canada, Tim Hortons, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Verizon, Macy’s, Walmart Canada, Scotiabank and RBC, among others. It said it has worked with 7-Eleven for seven years and installs between one and three new 7-Eleven locations on each business day.
Creative Realities described itself as the leading U.S. provider of digital signage software for quick-service restaurants and said it is a significant provider in stadiums and arenas. The company said it powers approximately 3,300 screens at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium and is working on the Tennessee Titans stadium project, which it described as an approximately $8 million project involving 1,700 screens. The company expects to commission that stadium in January 2027.
The company said research firm invidis ranks it ninth globally by screens powered, while Creative Realities’ own market research places it fifth globally excluding China and Russia.
Retail Media Networks Seen as Major Growth Driver
Management identified retail media networks as the largest prospective source of growth. In response to an analyst question, the company estimated that retail media networks could account for as much as 40% of future growth, while conversions from other digital-signage providers and new conversions from static to digital signage could each account for about 30%.
Creative Realities said it owns Canada’s largest mall media network, with screens in 95 of the country’s top 100 malls. The network generates about $28 million in advertising revenue, according to the company.
The company also discussed its work for Albertsons, which it previously announced as a more than $50 million project. Creative Realities said it is deploying 15 screens at each of Albertsons’ 2,200 stores and had reached 500 stores at the time of the presentation, representing more than 5,000 and closer to 6,000 screens. It said its AdLogic advertising software is delivering more than 1 million advertisements per day within Albertsons stores.
Management characterized retail media as a growing opportunity as retailers seek to monetize in-store traffic in addition to their websites and mobile applications. The company said 83% of U.S. purchases still occur in physical stores.
Financial Outlook and Balance Sheet
Creative Realities reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $16.3 million and second-quarter revenue of $21.5 million, stating that both figures exceeded analyst consensus estimates. It did not report third-quarter results during the presentation, but said it was comfortable with the analyst estimate of $26.1 million.
The company cited consensus expectations for fourth-quarter revenue of $36.8 million, supported in part by its Canadian mall media business, and said consensus calls for more than $100 million in full-year 2026 revenue and adjusted EBITDA of $11.4 million. For 2027, it cited analyst consensus revenue of $114 million and said it was comfortable with that growth outlook.
- Management expects fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 20%.
- The company expects its SaaS revenue to rise from about $20 million to $26 million during 2026, followed by roughly 25% growth in 2027.
- It said it had $10 million in cash at the end of the second quarter and net debt of $36.4 million, including roughly $30 million associated with an acquisition completed about a year earlier.
- Management said it expects to use excess cash flow to reduce leverage and anticipates falling below a two-times leverage ratio, potentially by the end of the first quarter.
Acquisition Strategy and Customer Returns
Creative Realities said it continues to pursue acquisitions in a fragmented industry. Management said a business generating $10 million in revenue and 8% EBITDA margin could potentially generate a 40% EBITDA margin after being integrated onto Creative Realities’ platform, though it did not provide specific acquisition targets.
The company said it had achieved $7.3 million of a targeted $10 million in synergies from its most recent acquisition.
Management also described the economics of digital-menu deployments in quick-service restaurants. It said it guarantees a 180-day return on investment for indoor digital menu boards and generally sees sales lifts of 5% to 12%, particularly in higher-margin drink categories. Creative Realities cited Black Rifle Coffee as an example, saying a menu-board redesign contributed to a 1,070% increase in sales of its best-selling coffee cup and paid for itself in less than two weeks.
For drive-through customers, the company said improving service time by six seconds through digital technology can produce about $10,000 per month in gross-margin benefit for a restaurant.
About Creative Realities (NASDAQ:CREX)
Creative Realities, Inc is a digital marketing technology company that helps businesses use digital signage and connected technologies to engage customers in physical locations. The company develops and manages digital experiences for retail stores, restaurants, automotive dealerships, financial institutions, healthcare organizations, entertainment venues and other customer-facing environments.
Its offerings include digital signage strategy and design, content creation, software, display hardware, installation, systems integration, network monitoring and ongoing technical support.
