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LONDON (Alliance News) - Boku Inc on Tuesday said its annual loss narrowed sharply due to increased volumes and active client numbers.
Boku shares were trading 13% higher on Tuesday morning at 93.00 pence each.
The mobile payments platform provider reported pretax loss of USD3.0 million in 2018, narrowed sharply from USD28.5 million a year earlier, as revenue jumped by 45% to USD35.3 million from USD24.4 million.
Total payment volume doubled to over USD3.6 billion from USD1.7 billion in 2017, with the number of active monthly users up to 13.5 million from 8.0 million.
Boku swung to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of USD6.3 million versus adjusted Ebitda loss of USD2.3 million a year prior.
Strong growth from App Store clients was balanced with an equally buoyant performance by Settlement business portfolio, the company said.
"2018 has been a transformational year for Boku; two major milestones include reporting our maiden positive adjusted Ebitda for the whole year and the acquisition of mobile identity business, Danal Inc," said Chief Executive Jon Prideaux.
On January 1, Boku completed the acquisition of Danal, which trades as BilltoMobile and provides carrier-integrated mobile commerce solutions. Danal was acquired for 26.7 million Boku shares, equal to 10.7% of the enlarged share capital, from Korean company Danal Corp.
"We believe that 2019 will be another year of exceptional growth as we continue to build upon our strong Payments business, growing Identity business, and our state of the art platform to deliver further products and services to our customers," added Prideaux.
