(Alliance News) - Cybersecurity company Kape Technologies PLC on Tuesday said it is on track to meet its full-year expectations after delivering a rise in revenue in the first half of 2019.
Pretax profit fell, however, by 28% to USD1.3 million in the six months to June 30 from USD1.8 million a year before. Share-based payments soared to USD989,000 from USD187,000 with depreciation and amortisation costs jumping by 67% to USD2.8 million from USD1.7 million, Kape said.
Revenue rose by 24% to USD29.9 million from USD24.1 million. The company's revenue is generated from its app distribution business; it sold its media division in July 2018 to Ecom Online Ltd.
Research and development costs rose by 70% to USD1.5 million from USD908,000.
Kape said: "We continue to invest in R&D, with 44% of our workforce, excluding staff in our customer support centre in the Philippines, allocated to R&D and the group's malware detection capabilities, to ensure that our solutions are consistently at the forefront of the digital privacy space."
The company's subscription number, a key performance indicator, edged past one million, rising 24% from 830,000.
Kape also highlighted that its retention rate rose to 82% from 74% in December, underpinning "the quality of our earnings and the group's ability to generate revenues for future periods".
Looking ahead, Kape said it will continue its strategy of seeking higher growth in the consumer digital privacy market.
The firm added that is confident that it can deliver year-on-year growth in the remainder of 2019, in line with market expectations.
Chief Executive Ido Erlichman said: "This performance, coupled with the continued expansion of both our user base and software as a service-based model, provides Kape with a strong foundation from which to drive forward. Our results demonstrate the power of our business model as we head into the second half of the year having generated strong momentum.
"The progress that Kape has demonstrated in the first six months of 2019 has been key in underpinning its ongoing investment proposition."
Shares in Kape were 6.2% lower at 69.44 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.
