MAGNITE, INC. (MGNI)

Item 2. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and related statements by the Company contain forward-looking statements, including statements based upon or relating to our expectations, assumptions, estimates, and projections. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as "may," "might," "will," "objective," "intend," "should," "could," "can," "would," "expect," "believe," "design," "anticipate," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "plan" or the negative of these terms, and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements concerning the Company's guidance or expectations with respect to future financial performance; acquisitions by the Company, or the anticipated benefits thereof; macroeconomic conditions or concerns related thereto; the growth of ad-supported programmatic connected television ("CTV"); our ability to use and collect data to provide our offerings; the scope and duration of client relationships; the fees we may charge in the future; key strategic objectives; anticipated benefits of new offerings; business mix; sales growth; benefits from supply path optimization; our ability to adapt to advancements in artificial intelligence ("AI"); the development of identity solutions; client utilization of our offerings; the impact of requests for discounts, rebates, or other fee concessions; our competitive differentiation; our market share and leadership position in the industry; market conditions, trends, and opportunities; the effects of regulatory developments or antitrust rulings on competitive dynamics in our industry; our litigation against Google LLC, or the anticipated benefits thereof; certain statements regarding future operational performance measures; and other statements that are not historical facts. These statements are not guarantees of future performance; they reflect our current views with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and estimates and subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, outcomes, performance or achievements, or the timing thereof, to be materially different from expectations or results projected or implied by forward-looking statements.

We discuss many of these risks, uncertainties, and additional factors that could cause actual results, outcomes, or timing thereof, to differ materially from those anticipated by our forward-looking statements under the headings "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," and elsewhere in this report and in other filings we have made and will make from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and subsequent filings. These forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date of the report in which they are included. Unless required by federal securities laws, we assume no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons actual results or outcomes could differ materially from those anticipated, to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the statements are made. Without limiting the foregoing, any guidance we may provide will generally be given only in connection with quarterly and annual earnings announcements, without interim updates, and we may appear at industry conferences or make other public statements without disclosing material nonpublic information in our possession. Given these uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Investors should read this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and the documents that we reference in this report and have filed or will file with the SEC completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements and notes thereto appearing elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

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Overview

Magnite, Inc., ("we," or "us"), provides technology solutions to automate the purchase and sale of digital advertising inventory.

We believe that we are the world’s largest independent omni-channel sell-side advertising platform ("SSP"), offering a single partner for transacting globally across all channels, formats and auction types, and the largest independent programmatic CTV marketplace, making it easier for buyers to reach CTV audiences at scale from industry-leading streaming content providers, broadcasters, platforms and device manufacturers.

Our platform features applications and services for sellers of digital advertising inventory, or publishers, that own and operate CTV channels, applications, websites and other digital media properties, to manage and monetize their inventory; applications and services for buyers, including advertisers, agencies, agency trading desks, and demand side platforms ("DSPs"), to buy digital advertising inventory; and a transparent, independent marketplace that brings buyers and sellers together and facilitates intelligent decision making and automated transaction execution at scale. Our clients include many of the world’s leading buyers and sellers of digital advertising inventory. Our platform processes trillions of ad requests per month, allowing buyers access to a global, scaled, independent alternative to "walled gardens," who both own and sell inventory and maintain control on the demand side.

In April 2025, we announced the introduction of our next generation SpringServe CTV platform, which combines the features and functionalities of our streaming SSP and ad server. Our SpringServe platform offers CTV sellers a holistic solution to manage and monetize their entire portfolio of CTV ad inventory, across both programmatic and direct-sold video inventory, while providing a more efficient connection for buyers to premium CTV supply. We provide sellers with a full suite of tools to protect the consumer viewing experience and brand safety expectations, while increasing revenue opportunities, including tools for mediation and yield optimization, forecasting and planning, customized ad experiences and formats, dynamic ad insertion to serve live streaming events and advanced podding logic to manage competitive separation. These tools are particularly important to CTV sellers who need to provide a TV-like viewing and advertising experience for consumers.

Buyers leverage our platform to reach their target audiences across thousands of sellers in a premium brand-safe environment. We offer a suite of tools designed to help buyers discover and curate inventory, simplify workflow and execute on their campaign objectives in a cost effective manner. For instance, our ClearLine product provides buyers with direct access to premium CTV inventory and integrated curation capabilities, enabling buyers to build custom deal packages that can be enriched with high-fidelity first-party or third-party data. We believe that our scale, platform features, and omni-channel offering makes us an essential partner for buyers.

We operate our business on a worldwide basis, with an established operating presence in North America, Australia and Europe, and a developing presence in Asia and South America. Our non-U.S. subsidiaries and operations perform primarily sales, marketing, and service functions.

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Industry and Company Trends

Continued Shift Toward Digital Advertising

Consumers are rapidly shifting their viewing habits towards digital mediums and expect to be able to consume content seamlessly across multiple devices, including computers, tablets, smartphones, and CTVs whenever and wherever they want. As digital content consumption continues to proliferate, we believe the percentage of advertising dollars spent through digital channels will continue to grow.

Automation of Buying and Selling

Due to the size and complexity of the digital advertising ecosystem and purchasing process, manual processes cannot effectively manage digital advertising inventory at scale. In addition, both buyers and sellers are demanding more transparency, better controls and more relevant insights from their advertising inventory purchases and sales. This has created a need for software solutions, known as programmatic advertising, that automate the process for planning, buying, selling and measuring digital advertising across screens. Programmatic transactions include biddable auctions, where multiple buyers bid against each other in a real-time auction for the right to purchase a publisher's inventory, as well as reserve auctions, where publishers establish direct deals or private marketplaces with select buyers. These reserve auctions may also be guaranteed, where a buyer has negotiated a pre-established price and volume with a seller.

Convergence of TV and Digital

CTV viewership is growing rapidly and the pace of adoption is accelerating the transition of linear television to CTV programming. Initially, many streaming services were subscription based, but as the market has matured, the largest streaming publishers have adopted ad-supported models or hybrid models that rely on a combination of subscription fees and advertising. With the proliferation of CTV advertising inventory, we believe that brand advertisers looking to engage with streaming viewers will continue to shift their budgets from linear to CTV. Moreover, we believe that as the amount of CTV inventory continues to scale, it will become increasingly more accessible to small and medium sized businesses, many of whom have no experience advertising on linear TV. We believe this transition is likely to be accelerated by advancements in AI, and in September 2025 we completed the acquisition of Streamrai, Inc. ("Streamr.ai"), a self-service platform that leverages generative AI to automate the creation of broadcast-quality video ads and streamline campaign setup, allowing advertisers to launch CTV campaigns in significantly less time and at significantly less cost than traditional methods.

As the advertiser base for CTV expands and diversifies, we believe CTV sellers will make a greater percentage of inventory available through biddable auction environments with multiple buyers rather than programmatic guaranteed. We believe that this shift, if it were to occur, would likely be beneficial to our CTV growth as biddable transactions tend to require a higher level of service and therefore carry a higher take-rate compared to reserve auctions.

We have made and plan to continue to make significant investments in technology, sales and support related to our CTV growth initiatives, and believe CTV will be the most significant driver of our revenue growth for the foreseeable future.

Artificial Intelligence

Advancements in AI present both opportunities and risks to our business. AI is changing the way in which users access information and content on the open internet, in particular with respect to search referral traffic, which has and is expected to continue to decline. This shift could reduce the volume of open web display inventory monetized through our platform. At the same time, AI has the potential to create new digital advertising opportunities through emerging formats such as advertising units that appear within outputs generated by AI models.

In addition, the emergence of AI-driven protocols and transition frameworks has the potential to simplify programmatic activation and execution, improve advertising outcomes, and increase the value of advertising inventory by surfacing valuable real-time ins

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Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the related notes to those statements included in Item 8 to this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to historical financial information, the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates, beliefs, and expectations and that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those discussed in these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, particularly in "Item 1A. Risk Factors" and the "Special Note About Forward-Looking Statements; Summary of Risk Factors."

Overview and Trends

See "Item 1. Business" for an overview of our business, the industry in which we operate, and important industry trends.

Recent Developments

Financial Highlights

The following represents our consolidated financial highlights for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023:

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* Contribution ex-TAC and Adjusted EBITDA are Non-GAAP measures. Refer to discussion in section "Key Operating and Financial Performance Metrics" for a definition of Contribution ex-TAC and Adjusted EBITDA, as well as reconciliations of gross profit to Contribution ex-TAC and Net income (loss) to Adjusted EBITDA, for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively.

Over the past several years, we have made a number of investments to build what we believe is the leading independent programmatic CTV platform, including our 2021 acquisitions of SpotX, a leading CTV supply side platform, and SpringServe, a leading ad server for CTV. We believe these transactions are highly strategic, as the combination of our SSP and ad server allows us to offer publishers an independent full-stack solution that works across their entire video advertising business, for both programmatic and directly sold inventory, to manage yield and drive value. As a result of our investments, CTV has become the biggest growth driver of our business, with revenue growing 9% and Contribution ex-TAC growing 17% year-over-year from 2024 to 2025.

We believe that we are well positioned to take advantage of a number of favorable market trends in CTV. In particular, as the pace of adoption has accelerated and the streaming market has proliferated, the largest streaming publishers have adopted ad-supported models leading to a significant increase in the amount of CTV inventory available for advertisers.

Despite the proliferation of CTV advertising inventory, CTV sellers have been slower to embrace biddable environments with multiple buyers compared to desktop and mobile sellers. Currently, the vast majority of CTV advertising is transacted through reserve auctions that are established by a sellers direct sales team with a single buyer. This is particularly true of larger publishers and broadcasters that are newer to programmatic advertising and have large direct sales forces, as reserve auctions allow the seller to maintain tighter control over their advertising allocation. These publishers have continued to increase their focus and investment in programmatic CTV, and in recent periods have grown as a percentage of our CTV business.

As the industry matures, we anticipate that market dynamics will lead CTV sellers to make a greater percentage of inventory available through biddable auction environments with multiple buyers rather than programmatic guaranteed, in order to accommodate a broader set of advertisers that have not historically advertised on linear TV. We believe that this shift, if it were to occur, would likely be beneficial to our CTV growth as biddable transactions tend to require a higher level of service and therefore carry a higher take-rate compared to reserve auctions. At the same time, we expect CTV advertisers that have historically transacted on our platform through managed service insertion orders to continue to shift budgets towards more automated solutions, which tend

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to carry a lower take rate; and as a result, we expect transactions through managed service insertion orders to become a smaller component of our overall business.

We have made and plan to continue to make significant investments in technology, sales and support related to our CTV growth initiatives, and believe CTV will be a significant driver of our revenue growth for the foreseeable future. In April 2025, we announced the introduction of our next generation SpringServe CTV platform. The new SpringServe platform combines the features and functionalities of our streaming SSP and ad server to provide a more efficient connection for buyers to premium CTV supply, while offering powerful tools and streamlined workflow for sellers through a single user interface.

In addition to CTV, we track mobile and desktop channels. We expect our revenue and Contribution ex-TAC from each of these channels to grow at a slower rate compared to CTV, with mobile expected to grow at a higher rate than desktop. In particular, we believe growth rates for open web display will be lower across both mobile and desktop, consistent with the overall decline in search referral traffic. We expect our desktop and mobile web business to continue to decline as an overall percentage of our revenue in future periods; however, we expect that contributions from these channels will continue to represent a significant percentage of our revenue in the near term. Therefore, the mix of our desktop and mobile web business will continue to have a negative effect on our overall growth rate.

Our mobile channel consists of mobile web and mobile applications, with mobile applications expected to be a larger driver of our growth in future periods. A significant portion of the mobile application inventory on our platform is made available through third-party mobile technology platforms or aggregators, rather than application developers themselves. Accordingly, we are focused on expanding our relationships with these third parties in order to increase our access to inventory. Other important growth initiatives for our mobile and desktop channels include: bringing additional advertising demand to sellers through SPO and other buyer initiatives; increasing the operational efficiency of our platform to reduce costs for us as well as the process costs for buyers; developing alternative identity solutions to increase the value of seller inventory, as the industry shifts away from third-party cookies; leveraging our machine learning and big data set to improve traffic shaping and generate higher-quality matching between buyers and sellers; and increasing adoption of our proprietary SDK for mobile in-app advertising.

We anticipate that our operating expenses will continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as we invest in technology and development to enhance our product features, in particular CTV, as well as sales and marketing to acquire new clients and reinforce our relationships with existing clients. At the same time, we are making additional investments in on-prem data centers to support a higher percentage of CTV transactions, with the goal of increasing the operational efficiency of our platform in order to realize long-term cost savings.

Regulatory Developments and Google Litigation

On April 17, 2025, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (the "Court") ruled that Google LLC ("Google") had violated federal antitrust laws by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the display publisher ad server market and display ad exchange (also called an SSP) market, and had unlawfully tied its display ad server and ad exchange. Having found Google liable, the Court held closing arguments in November 2025 to determine what remedies are appropriate to restore competition to the affected markets. While the specific timing and nature of these remedies remains uncertain, and Google has indicated its intent to appeal the decision, we expect this ruling to have a significant positive impact on our industry and business prospects.

Our mobile and desktop SSP competes directly with Google's ad exchange for the placement of display ads within the Google display ad server, which is estimated to be used by approximately 90% of open-web publishers. We believe that the conduct found to be unlawful by the Court provided Google's ad exchange with an unfair advantage relative to rival exchanges, such as our SSP, and artificially depressed our ability to win impressions within the Google display ad server. Moreover, we believe that Google's illegal conduct foreclosed the ability of publishers to freely choose what SSPs or exchanges they worked with to monetize inventory. As such, any remedy that creates a more level playing field and increases publisher choice is likely to improve our ability to monetize a greater share of display inventory while growing our market share in open-web display.

On September 16, 2025, in light of the Court's decision, we filed a lawsuit against Google in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking damages and other remedies (the "Google Action"). Our complaint alleges that Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct in the ad exchange and ad server markets in violation of federal antitrust laws, including actions that restrict publishers' ability to use competing services and favor Google's own advertising exchange, which caused us substantial harm and lost opportunity. Refer to "Our litigation with Google LLC presents potential risks that could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition" in Item 1A. "Risk Factors".

Macroeconomic Developments

Macroeconomic challenges, such as inflation, tariffs and trade wars, the interest rate environment, global conflicts, the risk of a recession, and labor strikes, generally have a negative impact on ad budgets, which in turn may lead to slower ad spend growth through our platform. Any worsening of macroeconomic conditions in future periods would likely have a negative effect on our financial results, the magnitude of which is difficult to predict. In addition, inflation and tariffs could result in an increase in our cost

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base relative to our revenue and increased cost associated with our infrastructure investments. Moreover, in response to U.S. tariffs, foreign countries in which we operate may enact additional or new taxes that are applicable to our business.

Refer to Item 1A. "Risk Factors" for additional information related to risks associated with macroeconomic challenges.

Components of Our Results of Operations

We report our financial results as one operating segment. Our consolidated operating results are regularly reviewed by our chief operating decision maker, principally to make decisions about how we allocate our resources and to measure our consolidated operating performa

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