Mobile Streams Share News (MOS)

Earnings deteriorated at Latin America-focused mobile apps store Mobile Streams in the six months to end-December due to weakness in the Argentine peso, despite growth in both revenues and cash reserves.The active subscriber base swelled by around 50% to more than 4m, which helped sales increase 14% to £27m, but the weakening of the peso by 25% against dollar and the strengthening of sterling by 2% against dollar weighed on operating profits, which fell 36% to £1.2m.Chief Executive Simon Buckingham, who has had to renegotiate content and advertising contracts from dollars to pesos, added that other factors hitting profits were marketing expenses growing more quickly than revenues, and well as expansions made into Mexico, Columbia and Brazil.House broker N+1 Singer has adjusted forecasts for the full year to take account of the weaker peso and the one-off impacts for expected revenues of £49.9m and operating profits of £1.6m.With the search for a new Chief Financial Officer ongoing after Gaston Cerf resigned in February, Singer said: "MOS has had to face a torrid time at the same point as it was executing its expansion and diversification strategy. It appears to have weathered the storm and is in better shape should the issue flare up again."Shares in the company were down 8.4% to 24.5p at 14:45 on Thursday. OH