17th Mar 2015 10:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - Ubisense Group PLC Tuesday reported a wider loss for 2014 as it booked a writedown on a 2011 acquisition and costs related to a 2013 deal, but its profit excluding exceptional items and reorganisation costs rose as it achieved its target of increasing sales of its products by more than sales of its services.
The company, which makes technology that improves efficiency on vehicle manufacturer production lines and technology that improves efficiency for field workers at utility companies, reported a pretax loss of GBP4.8 million for 2014, wider than the GBP1.7 million loss it reported a year earlier, as it booked GBP458,000 in reorganisation costs and a GBP1.3 million impairment of goodwill and customer relationships acquired with Realworld OO Systems Ltd in 2011.
Its operating expenses also rose 70% to GBP18.6 million, partly due to the inclusion of costs from Geoplan which it acquired in December 2013.
Still, its closely-watched earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, excluding non-recurring items and share-based payments, rose to GBP1.9 million, from GBP1.1 million, as revenue increased to GBP35.1 million from GBP27.0 million and its gross margin improved to 39.9% from 34.2% as it increased the proportion of higher-margin product sales.
Ubisense, which counts Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, Toyota and John Deere amongst its automotive customers, has been trying to grow product sales by more than services sales, and that happened for the first time in 2014. Product revenue grew by 49.8% to GBP20.1 million, while services revenue grew 10.3% to GBP15.0 million. That helped lift recurring revenue by 27.3%.
"2014 saw us break into important new customers as well as increasing our repeat business with existing customers to help them improve their business processes. Our products and the way we combine it with in-depth knowledge of customers' business requirements really is unique. We are now beginning to monetise that uniqueness and we are very confident about our prospects as a result," said Chief Executive Richard Green.
It said it had signed up automotive customers Tesla, Honda, Konatsu and CLAAS and utility customers Exelon, NiSource and Liberty Utilities.
"The group has increasing visibility on revenues into 2015 as our penetration within existing customers increases," it said.
Ubisense shares were down 2.4% at 91.25 pence Tuesday morning.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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