Boku confident on full year guidance as revenue soars

(Sharecast News) - Boku on Tuesday reported a jump in revenue but a deepened loss, even as the company reassured shareholders that it anticipates meeting full year expectations and a "good" second half.

The independent carrier commerce company reported revenue of $23.5m for the six months ended 30 June, an increase of 39% over the same period in the year before.

Total payment volumes grew 47% to $2.3bn and monthly active users rose 48% to 15.3m, while billable identity transactions doubled to 141.0m.

However, losses before tax deepened from $0.6m to $2.5m as administrative expenses increased by 46% to $22.9m.

The AIM traded company said it would need a "good" second half of the year in order to meet its guidance of $52.0m of revenue, gross margins of 93% in its payments segment and 40% in the identity segment, though the guidance remained unchanged as the company said it anticipated an improvement in the remaining months of the year.

Jon Prideaux, chief executive of Boku, said: "Gross margins in both segments are ahead of target. Within payments we expect a stronger second half driven by the game release schedule, the traditional Christmas peak and a spate of new connections. We now have a pipeline of more than 250 deployments - moderated by some extended promotional periods by some customers."

"In identity, we expect the investment that we have made in sales resource to start to pay off and also to start generating more non-US revenue as international connections become activated."

Boku shares were up 5.39% at 107.50p at 1317 BST.