MAIS.L Regulatory News (MAIS)

8 January 2014

blur (Group) plc

("blur," the "Group" or the "Company")

Q4 Metrics update at end of most successful year to date - the year of s-commerce

1509% y-o-y growth in submitted project values

blur (Group) Plc (BLUR), the technology company that's reinventing commerce at blurgroup.com, finished its most successful year to date with a record-breaking fourth quarter.

Increasing project volumes and values confirm that s-commerce is being adopted by business for significant services projects. More companies around the world are recognising the importance of a platform-based approach to services selection and delivery, which delivers increased choice of service provider, shorter timescales and reduced costs.

Philip Letts, CEO blur Group commented on the outstanding quarter: "We've described 2013 as the year of s-commerce adoption. This quarter not only confirmed that s-commerce is changing business globally, particularly evidenced by growing project submissions from Asia Pacific, but also showed how high-value, long term projects with staged delivery cycles provide visibility of Exchange use and uptake through 2014.

"This quarter saw us build the organizational infrastructure to shape our business for the next three years, allowing us to grow and scale globally. Building on the exceptional growth in s-commerce adoption 2013, 2014 will see a focus on enterprise s-commerce and mobile s-commerce accelerating the uptake globally."

Overview

188% y-o-y growth in the number of new projects submitted, a 1509% y-o-y growth in total value of projects submitted and a 457% y-o-y growth in average submitted project value during the quarter shows a continuation of the momentum the Exchange has seen since its launch. The total value of projects submitted to the Exchange is now over $115m, with $64m in this quarter alone.

2,086 projects were submitted throughout 2013, meaning on average nearly 6 projects were submitted daily, as compared to 2 in 2012 - strong proof of the increasing adoption of the platform. The traditional Q4 holiday season saw new projects submitted throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas, showing that s-commerce is a 24*7 proposition in the same way as e-commerce.

Projects submitted

● 719 projects in the quarter making a total of 2,086 projects in 2013 (776 projects in 2012)

● Highest ever total quarterly project values of $64.52 million

● Average submitted project value increased to $89K 

With 719 projects submitted in the quarter (another quarterly record and the highest y-o-y growth to date), the total projects submitted to the Exchange in 2013 was 2,086 - more than in all previous years combined since the Exchange was launched. The growth in submitted project values was significant - the total in this quarter alone being three times that of the aggregate value submitted by the end of Q4 2012, and a staggering 1509% y-o-y growth.

The increasing project values show how blur Group's network effect is building: the platform's success generates confidence in using s-commerce. The larger value projects also tend to be longer in duration and so build a predictable pipeline with stronger earnings visibility, especially those from blue chips like Regus, Danone, Momentive, NetworkRail and Topman who typically have a greater propensity to repeat. Balancing the longer timeframes of these projects, the profile continues to show a high number of short-term, smaller projects with shorter delivery cycles.

Particularly notable in the quarter were the rising number of projects from India and Australia/NZ, supporting blur's move to open an Asia Pacific office later in 2014 which will be well placed to exploit the potential of this region. The USA and Canada remained the largest market with 47% of all projects submitted coming from this region; Europe was next largest with 31% and notably 15% of projects came from India, its highest share to date.

The largest number of projects were for marketing services, however technology services continues to be the fastest growing vertical, now accounting for over 20% of submitted projects.

Projects kicked off

● Projects kicked off totalled 180

● 102% y-o-y growth over Q4 2012

Of the projects that kicked off in the quarter, 24% were from existing Exchange customers. Momentive, a GE company has now run nearly 70 projects on the Exchange since it first used the Exchange in 2012. Premium account Danone kicked off a high-value project in the quarter and there were two significant value projects from India, which together with ongoing high value projects from the US, generate Exchange activity through 2014. The total number of projects kicked off in 2013 was 579, a y-o-y increase of 140% compared with 2012.

Experts

● 3,129 new expert service providers joined in the quarter

● 82% y-o-y growth of experts

The expert service providers numbers continue to accelerate and 3,129 experts was the largest number to join in a quarter. Technology experts now represent 6.5% of all experts.

Other blur Group Developments in Q4

blur Group continued to develop its s-commerce positioning by showing how it provides users of its platform with Software as a Transaction (SaaT) - operating at the intersection of traditional ERP platforms, community/social platforms and e-commerce marketplaces creating an enterprise-class solution for buying services.

It launched for smartphones as part of the continued development of blur 3.0 so that s-commerce is available anywhere, at any time. The Company also continued to enhance the usability of the platform, ahead of the next major release, blur 4.0 in 2014, and has increased its investment in the design and development teams to prepare for this.

The move of blur Group's HQ to Exeter was accompanied by the creation of new teams to enhance customer experience at all points so that s-commerce becomes a complete and unified experience, whether as a buyer or seller. The transition of the HQ to Exeter, and the subsequent establishment of regional offices for EMEA and the US as well as a strategy center in California, saw teams grow in both size and calibre, with significant hires across the business. As well as new teams, blur has accelerated investment in new internal systems for finance, HR, sales, marketing automation and customer success.

For further information please contact:

About blur (Group) plc at blurgroup.com

blur Group is a technology company reinventing how businesses do commerce at blurgroup.com. Its Global Services Exchange uses blur's proprietary s-commerce platform to enable over 35,000 business users in 141 countries to buy, sell and deliver core business services and take advantage of Software as a Transaction™ to pay for these projects.

blur Group (BLUR) is a public company headquartered in the UK with offices in the US and Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. blur was founded in January 2006 and launched in alpha in 2007 with the full, formal launch of the Global Services Exchange in January 2010. At that time, just over three projects per month were submitted. Now,over 200 projects start on the exchange each month. Customers include Danone, Broadridge, Coral, Exceed, HCA, Momentive, Red Commerce, the Financial Times, Berlitz, Butlins, GE Healthcare and Tyco. Over the same time, average project value has grown from approximately $1,500 in 2010 to $89K in Q4 2013.

Today, over 3,550 projects have been submitted with a combined value of above $125 million. These have come from the US, UK, Europe, Africa and Asia with nearly 35,000 expert service providers on eight exchanges responding to them.