Good day and welcome to the Perion Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. The press release detailing the financial results is available on the Company's website at perion.com. Before we begin, I'd like to read the following Safe Harbor statement. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors including those discussed under the heading Risk Factors and elsewhere in the Company's Annual Report on Form 20-F that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different and any future results, performance or achievements anticipated or implied by these forward-looking statements.
Hosting the call today are Doron Gerstel, Perion's Chief Executive Officer; and Maoz Sigron, Perion's Chief Financial Officer.
I would now like to turn the call over to Doron Gerstel. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. I want to start at a high level. We made real progress in 2018 advancing the three-phase turnaround strategy that we commenced when I joined Perion almost two years ago. The plan was designed to reposition Perion for long-term growth, and to do that, I knew we would face some short-term challenges along the way. We entered the year with a goal to strengthen our financial position, continue to rationalize our expense structure and generate adjusted EBITDA in the range of $28 million to $32 million. Our goals also included the reallocation of resources to invest in new technology that will serve as the catalyst to drive growth.
I'm pleased to report today that we have achieved these goals and delivered on our guidance projection. During the year, we generated $32.8 million in cash and reduced our debt by $20 million from $60.7 million to $40.5 million. During the third quarter, we reached a tipping point for the first time in four years by achieving a positive net cash position where our debt fell below our cash level. We further reduced operating expenses by nearly $22.4 million and generated $29.6 million in adjusted EBITDA. On a year-over-year basis, adjusted EBITDA increased slightly despite an 8% decline in total revenues for the same period. This is a direct result of the automated system we've implemented throughout our operation, tight management controls, and the impact of the cost optimization initiatives we completed earlier in the year.