LONDON (Alliance News) - Fitbug Holdings PLC Friday said its pretax loss widened in 2014 on the back of higher costs, partially caused by investment in its new Kiqplan programme, but said it has secured new commercial agreements with companies in 2015.
Fitbug shares fell 6.4% to 5.50 pence per share on Friday morning.
The maker of fitness and well-being programmes and devices reported a pretax loss of GBP3.8 million in 2014, wider than the GBP2.7 million loss reported in 2013, as a large rise in revenue was offset by increased administrative expenses, mainly related to litigation issues and investment in research and development, and higher finance costs.
Revenue for the year totalled GBP2.3 million compared with only GBP749,000 a year earlier, but administrative expenses rose to GBP3.6 million from GBP2.6 million whilst exceptional items relating to legal and professional costs in relation to trademark and patent cases with Fitbit Inc increased to GBP742,000 from GBP84,000 and finance costs increased to GBP351,000 from only GBP152,000.
"2014 was an exciting and transformational year for Fitbug as a result of our increased emphasis on the emerging consumer space for wearable technology and the development of a pioneering new coaching framework called Kiqplan. This, along with the establishment of high profile retail and business to business partnerships, provides an important foundation upon which to drive the business forward over the coming years," said Chief Executive Pal Landau.
The company's coaching framework, Kiqplan, is part of the Fitbug's aim to make an integrated health service with its wearable technology. In 2014, it secured commercial agreements with partners such as Samsung, Target, J Sainsbury, Argos, Jawbone and others. Fitbug said Target and Sainsbury have made additional orders in 2015 and the company secured a new customer, Bestbuy.com.
In February 2015, US Midwest retailer Meijer, a large regional American hypermarket chain with over 200 stores, agreed to stock the Fitbug Orb in three colours, and eight Kiqplan programmes from May 2015.
"These sales agreements underpin the quality of Fitbug's products and our active growth strategy. We look forward to building upon the success achieved to date and will provide further updates on these developments in due course," it said.
"A key focus will be the continued roll-out of Kiqplan; we are currently working on new programmes to extend our current portfolio and continue to seek new partnership and retail agreements for both these and our wearable products," added Fitbug.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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