Pornhub’s parent company is surprisingly profitable despite recent financial and reputational hits, according to internal projections reviewed by Semafor that give a rare look inside the firm.
Executives anticipated making tens of millions of dollars in profits despite MasterCard and Visa refusing to process payments for certain websites including Pornhub, with operating margins of about 27% in 2021 and almost 30% in 2022, according to estimates the company showed potential investors in 2021. In comparison, Facebook parent Meta had an operating margin of 25% in 2022.
MindGeek, which owns Pornhub and other adult websites such as Brazzers, was expected to churn out profits despite not attracting high-end advertisers thanks to relatively low costs.
Getting banned by Visa and Mastercard lowered expected earnings by as much as 40% in 2022. If the payments giants started processing again, MindGeek projected its 2022 revenue to be about $455 million — less than the $460 million the company said it generated in 2018.
The figures come from presentations and internal reports MindGeek, through an outside firm, showed potential investors when hoping to attract takeover interest, according to people familiar with the effort. Investment group Ethical Capital Partners, which formed specifically for this acquisition, eventually bought MindGeek in March of this year.
Pornhub was the 12th most visited website in the world in June, according to web traffic data tracker SimilarWeb, ahead of Amazon, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Ethical Capital declined to comment.