Mobile money company,Monitise(LSE: MONI) announced its preliminary results for the year ended 30 June 2014 today, which showed continued growth across the companys operations. However, the market did not take the news well and Monitises shares have fallen around 4% in early trade.
Monitise revealed today that group revenue had expanded 31%, to 95.1m over the past year, while the value of transfers and payments by customers across its platforms more than doubled, jumping 120% to $88bn.
That being said,the company reported a groupearnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA loss of 31.4m, compared to last years EBITDA loss of 19.3m.
Further, the groups adjusted loss jumped by more than 10m, to 43.7m, from the loss of 32.8m reported during the same period last year. On an unadjusted basis, group statutoryloss after tax was 60.1m, once again worse than last years reported loss of 51.3m.
Commenting on the results,Monitise co-CEO Alastair Lukies said:
This past year was an important and transformational period for Monitise. Our underlying performance reflects the proactive and bold steps we have taken to transition to a product-led subscription-based business operating in the global mobile banking, payments and commerce industry.
Outlook
Monitises full-year update may have disappointed some investors but for long-term holders, todays news release contained a number of impressive statements and targets.
For example, after announcing aglobal alliance withIBMseveral weeks ago, Monitise today announced astrategic partnership withSantander,to develop and deploy a series of mobile banking innovations.
In addition, management reiterated Monitises long-term strategy. Specifically, management is targeting revenue growth of at least 25% during 2015 and the group is still on target forbecoming EBITDA profitable by 2016.
By 2018, management is targeting 200m registered users, an EBITDA margin of at least 30% and a gross margin above 70%. Average revenue per user is expected to hit 2.50 by 2018.
Doubts remain
Unfortunately, after issuing two profit warnings earlier this year, Monitise became one of the UKs most shorted stocks. And it seems as if the market is betting that Monitise will slip up again. According to data supplied by Markit, there is still a strong short interest in Monitises shares.
The groups earlier profit warnings saw management reduce revenue growth guidance from 50% to 40%, then down to the low 30s.As a result, management warned that the group would make a loss of between 32m and 36m, against market forecasts of 28m.
However, the groupsaidthe shortfall was due to two large contracts being delayed as Monitise moves from selling its technology via an upfront licensing fee, to a subscription model.Monitise had chosen to defer revenue rather than sign poor deals, great news for long-term holders.
Long-term play
So, despite short-term headwinds, Monitise could be a great long-term buy, if the group hits its own lofty growth targets. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that you do your own research before making any trading decision and Monitise may not fit your own personal risk profile.
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Rupert Hargreaves owns shares of International Business Machines. The Motley Fool UK owns shares of Monitise. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.