24th Sep 2013 13:25
LONDON (Alliance News) - RapidCloud International PLC Tuesday showed increases in revenues and pretax profits in its first interim results since starting trading on AIM.
For the half-year ended June 30, RapidCloud posted revenues of MYR4.8 million, up from MYR3.5 million in the previous year. The company had a pretax profit of MYR1.9 million, up from MYR887,000.
New product launches in South East Asia helped to boost revenues, and the company also benefited from participation in two government schemes in Malaysia to promote the use of cloud services. It said that small companies in Malaysia are able to claim a grant of MYR1,000 from the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission as part of one initiative, which RapidCloud hopes will help to accelerate the sales of its services in Malaysia.
The company is looking at Indonesia as its next expansion territory. "Those initiatives are available in Indonesia," Chairman David Cotterall told Alliance News. "We're not dependent on government handouts, we're going to go out and get these opportunities anyway, but obviously it helps if the environment is positive towards broadband."
"There's pretty much a broadband agenda now across all the countries we want to expand into," said Cotterall. The company may be looking to expand into Indonesia via acquisition, Cotterall said. "We might acquire a company that gives us a step jump into Indonesia and give us faster payback."
However, Cotterall said this was just a concept at the moment, and such an acquisitions would be largely funded from the company's recent IPO. The company has not yet spent significant amount of its IPO funding, Cotterall said, and it was looking at infrastructure and improvements it wants to make to the company. "We've started to hire more technology people, developers and programmers because we want to put more depth into our IP," Cotterall said.
In June the company also was awarded Multimedia Super Corridor status and pioneer status, allowing it to benefit from tax breaks in Malaysia over the next ten years. It said that it expected this to positively impact its earnings over the next decade. This status would not apply to Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and other territories RapidCloud wants to expand into, although it would pursue similar status in those countries if a similar award was available, Cotterall said.
In a statement Tuesday the cloud services company said that it was increasing its investment in its sales force, skills, product offering and infrastructure as it continues its expansion in South East Asia. "We're looking to hire at least 20 developers; we'll probably do that in Manilla," said Cotterall. "We can get the skill sets we need there."
The company is also looking to do more with its partnerships with Telecom Malaysia and Digital Philippines. "The success of listing in London helped boost our profile with the bigger customers," Cotterall said. "It will help us when we want to make acquisitions."
Results for the second half of the year are generally stronger, the company said in its statement Tuesday, and it expects for this trend to continue in this financial year.
Shares in RapidCloud were trading up 7.8% at 110.00 pence Tuesday afternoon.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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