30th Mar 2015 11:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Artilium PLC Monday said it swung to a pretax loss in the first half of its financial year as it was hit by challenging market conditions, particularly in Belgium, but it said steps it has taken to improve its business give it the prospect for revenue and cash flow growth over the next year.
The telecommunications software and services provider posted a pretax loss of EUR292,000 for the half year to end-December, compared with a pretax profit of EUR255,000 a year earlier, as revenue fell to EUR4.1 million from EUR5.5 million.
Artilium attributed the decline in revenue to a number of larger one-off projects in the previous year, and competitive pressures in Belgium hitting its United Telecom business. Mobile operators in Belgium have lowered prices "significantly", hampering United Telecom which also had to lower prices to resellers and mobile virtual network operators.
The company said it had to lower the prices to secure future business and to allow mobile virtual network operators to develop a profitable business so they can start growing against. Artilium expects the benefits of some contracts to start showing through in the second half.
"Having taken these important steps, and accepted their inevitable short term impact on the top-line, we believe that their implementation will help us to develop a healthy business in Belgium and beyond," Artilium said.
The company also raised its investments to improve its software offering, which it believes will put it in a strong position to add value to its customers.
Shares in Artilium are trading up 2.1% at 6.00 pence Monday afternoon.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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