Velocity Comp Regulatory News (VEL)

16 Jul 2007 07:01

Velti PLC16 July 2007 For Immediate Release Monday, 16 July 2007 VELTI PLC Strong performance and Key Strategic Agreement in the first half of 2007 LONDON - Velti plc ("Velti"), a leading provider of software platforms,applications and services for advertising agencies, mobile operators and media,announces that it has achieved a positive trading performance for the six monthsended 30 June 2007. The company has delivered a financial performance for the period at the top endof the Board's expectations with revenue growth of 80% per cent to circa €7.25million and similar margins compared to the corresponding period in 2006. During the first half of 2007 Velti established itself as one of the globaltechnology leaders in the area of mobile marketing and advertising andexperienced significant growth in demand for its products and services. Todaythe company has also announced the creation of Ansible, a 50:50 joint venturewith the Interpublic Group. Interpublic is one of the world's leading holdingorganizations of advertising agencies and marketing services companies, withmore than $25 billion in annual customer billings, $6 billion in sales and40,000 employees in 100 countries. Velti and Interpublic will have joint control over the new company and Veltiwill be using the proportionate consolidation method (50% line-by-lineconsolidation under the IFRS IAS 31 standard) to account for Ansible. Ansible is headquartered in New York with offices to be established later thisyear in Los Angeles, Beijing and London. Velti's participation in Ansible is inline with one of the Company's strategic goals of empowering advertisingagencies, mobile operators and media groups through top class software platformsand managed services. The Company believes that the market for mobileadvertising and marketing will grow exponentially and that the advertisingagencies will play a critical role in this growth. Mobile marketing andadvertising has to be tied into the online, TV, print, radio and outdooradvertising strategy, making Interpublic the ideal partner for this JointVenture. Velti will be providing all the mobile marketing and advertisingback-office services leveraging its market-leading Mobile Marketing Platformv3.6 which automates more than 60 different mobile marketing activities andprovides a key competitive advantage to Ansible. The mobile marketing and advertising market is poised to grow dramatically overthe next few years: •Mobile Marketing and Advertising will be worth $19 billion by 2011, up from $0.75 billion in 2006 (ABIResearch) •Interpublic captures approximately 7% of the global media market, with an estimated $25 billion in annual customer billings (Recma, Mediapost) •Over 1 billion mobile devices are expected to be sold in 2007, compared to 200 million PCs and 200 million TVs (Oppenheimer) •In 2011 mobile subscriptions will reach almost 4 billion (56% of the global population) (Informa) €89% of brands plan to market through mobile by 2008 and 42% of consumers welcome mobile advertising and marketing if it is relevant to their needs and targeted (Yankee group) The growth in the first half of 2007 has been driven by mobile operator projectsin UK and Southeastern Europe and advertising agency and consumer brandsengagements in the US and the UK. Velti has expanded its services and customerbase in Southeastern Europe by renewing contracts with Vodafone, WIND, Q-Telecomand the OTE group. In the UK, Velti has started a strategic cooperation withOrange, through the provision of managed mobile communities and mobile commercetransactions. Following the launch of its new Mobile Marketing and Advertising platform, Veltiis executing mobile marketing projects for MTV, Real Networks and LVMH'sHennessy out of its New York based offices, while it also acquired as customersbrands like Motorola and PepsiCo's Tasty Foods in Europe. Velti believes thatthe future growth of mobile value added services will be driven by mobilemarketing and advertising and the Company will be able to benefit significantlyfrom the growth of this market. Ansible will be leveraging the existing infrastructures of Interpublic andVelti. The Board therefore expects that the establishment of the joint venturewill have a broadly neutral effect on the P&L this year. In due course Ansiblecould have a significant positive effect in the company's results. The Board is very pleased by the financial performance in the first half of2007. Velti's revenues have traditionally been much stronger in the second half.The Board is confident that this seasonality will continue and the company willmeet its financial targets for the year. The announcement of interim results is expected to be made in the second half ofSeptember 2007. ENDS CONTACTS Velti:Alex Moukas, Chief Executive Officer +44 (0) 20 7633 5000Pantelis Papageorgiou, Finance Director Bankside: +44 (0) 20 7367 8888Simon Bloomfield or Steve Liebmann Oriel Securities: +44 (0) 20 7710 7600Andrew Edwards About Velti Velti is a leading mobile platforms and services provider that enables mobileadvertising, marketing and mobile content. With offices in London, New York,Boston and Athens and more than 200 employees, Velti operates in 10 countriesand its more than 100 corporate customers include major mobile networkoperators, advertising agencies and media groups. Velti is a publicly tradedcompany listed on the London Stock Exchange. For more information please visitwww.velti.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange