Preliminary results announced
04 Dec 2007
We are delighted to present a review of another successful year’s trading for the Group. In the two and a half years since admission to the AIM market, the Group has made tremendous strides. In February 2005, the Group had annualised sales of just over £40m with 283 employees and we derived nearly half our sales from re-selling outbound call minutes. In 2007, the Group has recorded sales of over £70m and derived less than one quarter of its sales from re-selling outbound calls, and has more than trebled its mobile subscriber base to 43,615, such that mobile now accounts for over 50% of the Group revenues. The transition has meant not only an improvement in the product base, and technical skill set in the Group; but it has also brought an improvement in the quality of earnings, as the group is less reliant on outbound calls, where the barriers to entry are low and a decline through transition to IP technology inevitable.
The scale of the Group is changing again in 2008, as the recent acquisition of Echo boosts employee numbers to 430, and brings a strong technical engineering base, with an excellent track record for supplying customers with converged communication solutions centred around IP based telephone systems in the office.
In summary, the Group has adjusted rapidly to changing markets, in particular developing skills organically and by acquisition in the mobile and IP arenas, which the Board expects to continue to be the major opportunities for organic growth over the next 2 years, as they command a larger share of our customers’ annual spend.
James Murray, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “I’m delighted to report a strong performance for the full year, with increased sales and bottom line growth as well as continued excellent cash conversion. During the second half we have completed the acquisition of Echo which has increased our scale, expanded our product range, strengthened our expertise and, importantly, opened up opportunities for cross-selling which we expect to deliver during 2008.
"Our strategy remains the same, to be the convergence partner of choice for our clients, while accelerating growth via acquisitions and organically. We are intent on maintaining organic growth through focusing on larger customers within the SME space, cross-selling, reducing churn and developing products to answer our customers’ needs. We believe the Group remains in a strong, healthy position and with our product range, skill set and partners’ relationships, we are well positioned to continue our growth into 2008 and beyond.”
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