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(Alliance News) - Boku Inc on Tuesday reported a swing to profit and higher revenue in 2021 on good growth in its Payments and Identity arms.
In 2021, the San Francisco-based mobile payments company swung to a pretax profit of USD4.4 million from a loss of USD17.3 million in 2020.
This was on revenue growth of 23% to USD69.2 million from USD56.4 million.
Boku credited these results to good revenue growth in both its Payments and Identity units.
In relation to the war in Ukraine, the company stated that it has no merchants, or assets in Russia. However, it does have connections to Russian carriers.
"Before the war, we used them to process transactions for 24 merchants. Almost all of them have stopped processing. Revenue from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are not material. Given the fluid situation, the precise impact is difficult to estimate with certainty, but the worst case is approximately 2% of revenue in 2022," Boku said.
Boku said that trading in 2022 has started well, with robust growth in its eWallets and Real Time Payments payment methods.
In January, the company said that it sold its Boku Identity arm to Twilio Inc for USD32.3 million. The company said that this would enable it to become a pureplay payments business and build out its mobile first payments network M1ST.
"We are pleased with our performance in 2021. Going forward, 2022 will see the emergence of Boku as a pureplay payments company, with the leading position in direct carrier billing and rapid growth in other local payment methods, such as eWallets and Real Time payments," Chief Executive Jon Prideaux said.
"We will invest further in building out our network and systems. This year we will broaden our M1ST network, grow existing merchants, recruit more new merchants who do not use us for direct carrier billing and expand into new territories."
Shares were down 1.2% at 120.00 pence each on Tuesday mid-morning in London.
By Abby Amoakuh; abbyamoakuh@alliancenews.com
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