19th Sep 2014 10:25
LONDON (Alliance News) - BrainJuicer Group PLC Friday reported a rise in first-half pretax profit, driven by its core quantitative services, the part of the business the company said is easier to scale and the main driver of anticipated future growth.
In a statement, the market research agency said it made a GBP1.5 million pretax profit in the six months ended June 30, compared with GBP1.3 million in the corresponding period last year. Revenue increased to GBP11.2 million from GBP10.8 million, boosted by 10% growth in its core quantitative services, which made up 86% of the total.
However, BrainJuicer said revenue in its two biggest markets, the UK and the US, fell by 4% and 5%. That said, US revenue grew by 5% in constant currency terms. According to the company's statement, BrainJuicer doesn't believe "performance in either region is indicative of a systemic problem."
However, revenue in its third biggest region, Continental Europe, grew by 6%, and by 10% after adjusting for a large Japanese client, previously serviced from Germany, which was transferred to its China team. Its China and Singapore region grew revenue by 65%, but by 45% after adjusting for the transferred client. Revenue from its Brazilian office rose by 24%.
Administrative expenses were broadly flat at about GBP7.2 million.
"We've seen healthy growth in our behavioural science based 'Juicy' products reflecting continued underlying progress in our largest clients. Growth overall would have been more significant were it not for a decline in our lower margin qualitative juice generation business which is particularly lumpy. Whilst, as always, we have limited revenue visibility, we believe we are on track to meet market profit expectations for the full year and continue to help our clients build famous brands," Chief Juicer John Kearon, also the founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
"However, we have to inject our usual caveat: we have little revenue visibility and plenty of volatility within individual clients, and so cannot anticipate with any certainty how our results will unfold in the short term." Kearon said in a joint-statement with Chief Financial Officer James Geddes.
BrainJuicer increased its interim dividend to 1.0 pence per share from 0.9p.
BrainJuicer shares were Friday quoted down 0.1% at 431.00 pence per share.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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