28th Sep 2018 13:01
LONDON (Alliance News) - MobilityOne Ltd said on Friday it was pushed to an interim loss due to majority-owned subsidiary Mobility I Tap Pay (Bangladesh) Ltd.
Further, the subsidiary is expected to dent MobilityOne's results over the remainder of the year.
Shares in the payments provider were down 13% at 4.20 pence on Friday.
Revenue for the half to June 30 rose to GBP57.5 million from GBP36.8 million, but the company swung to a pretax loss of GBP780,906 from a GBP225,092 profit.
Pushing the company to a loss was 55%-owned subsidiary, Mobility I Tap Pay (Bangladesh), or MiTP, which was acquired in November 2017 and contributed a loss for the period. MiTP has been investing to expand its point of sales and user base, said MobilityOne, and such has only generated a small revenue in the first half of 2018.
Group administration expenses nearly doubled in the half to GBP4.0 million from GBP2.1 million a year ago.
Looking ahead, the company expects its e-payment business in the mobile phone prepaid airtime reload and bill payment business in Malaysia to continue to grow.
However, the overall the trading performance in the second half of 2018 will likely be challenging as MiTP is expected to continue to incur more costs to expand the point of sales and user base.
MobilityOne said: "As such, the directors expect the overall financial performance of the group in the second half of 2018 to be impacted by the expected losses of MiTP."
"Nevertheless, the long-term prospects of MiTP with new services to be introduced in the future, such as inward money transfer services and local municipal bill payment services, are expected to enhance the growth of MiTP's business in Bangladesh and the Group as a whole," the company added.
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