Olympics and elections enliven sleepy summer at blinkx
Video content search engine specialist blinkx had what it termed an exceptional first half, driven by faster-than-anticipated integration of recent acquisitions.
Video content search engine specialist blinkx had what it termed an exceptional first half, driven by faster-than-anticipated integration of recent acquisitions.
In the six months to the end of September, revenues surged to $82.0m from $44.6m the year before.
Adjusted profit before tax, which excludes acquisition costs and other one-off items, leapt to $8.37m from $4.95m while statutory profit before tax improved to $2.48m from $1.48m the previous year.
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Diluted adjusted earnings per share jumped to 2.34 cents from 1.60 cents at the interim stage last year.
"The business demonstrated strong underlying growth, which was accelerated by the ahead-of-schedule integration of Burst and PVMG. The progress of this integration enabled us to serve a greater number of high value ads to a wider audience at robust monetisation rates," revealed Brian Mukherjee, Chief Executive Officer of blinkx.
Advertising revenue during the period was helped by the summer Olympics and the US presidential elections.
The company ended the period with cash of $41.6m, up from $38.4m at the end of March.
"Overall trading remains in line with the comments made in our trading update of October 29th 2012 and based on our performance this period and the fundamentals of the sector, we remain confident in our outlook for the rest of the year," Muckherjee said.
Broker Peel Hunt went further than that, suggesting that further earnings upgrades are on the way, less than a month after the broker upped its forecasts by 45%.
"Our latest changes produce an 8% rise in FY2013E EPS [fiscal 2013 earnings per share] from 3.0 cents to 3.24 cents," revealed Peel Hunt's Patrick Yau.
"Clearly this is a strong set on numbers helped by specific media and sports events driving the demand for online video ad inventory. The company has also been active in integrating acquisitions (ahead of plan), launching new products (revised blinkx.com) and signing new content and distribution partnerships," Yau noted.
"There are few ways for investors to gain exposure to the explosive growth currently taking place in the global online video market and we highlight blinkx as a key pick in this sector. Buy for long-term growth," is Yau's advice.
The interim results will be the last overseen by Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Spira, as he will be quitting the company at the end of the month. He will be replaced by Edward Reginelli, currently Senior Vice President and Group Controller at blinkx. Reginelli has over 15 years of experience, managing all aspects of financial accounting, controls, analysis, operations and reporting in complex corporate environments.
JH
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