Quartix Holdings PLC AGM Trading Statement (9501T)
26 March 2019 - 6:00PM
UK Regulatory
TIDMQTX
RNS Number : 9501T
Quartix Holdings PLC
26 March 2019
Quartix Holdings plc
("Quartix" or the "Company")
AGM Trading Statement
Quartix Holdings plc, one of Europe's leading suppliers of
subscription-based vehicle tracking systems, software and services,
issues the following trading statement ahead of its Annual General
Meeting later today.
The Board reports that trading for the two-month period to 28
February 2019 was very encouraging and consistent with meeting
market expectations for the year*.
Fleet tracking: UK, France and USA
Strong progress at the end of 2018 continued into 2019, with new
installations for the first quarter expected to be at least 45%
ahead of the same period in 2018, totalling 10,500 units. The
growth has been led by the UK, which is expected to be 55% ahead of
2018, at 6,500 new vehicle installations. The improvement in the UK
is broadly spread between an increased rate of customer acquisition
and the winning of larger customer accounts. France and the USA are
expected to have increased by 45% and 22%, respectively, with both
territories likely to achieve close to 2,000 new installations in
the quarter. The Board is confident of the market opportunity for
Quartix in each of these countries. Due to the company's
established treatment of expensing unit and installation costs as
incurred, the benefit of this growth will not be reflected in
profits until later in the year.
The estimates given above for the first quarter are dependent on
installation performance in the final 5 working days of the
month.
Fleet tracking: new territories
New websites, browser-based applications and mobile applications
were released for the Polish and Spanish markets in February,
followed by initial marketing investment in early March. The
Company is pleased to report that new customers have been won in
both countries and that it is building pipelines of prospects for
the future. The Board believes that it has an attractive
proposition for its target market in Poland and Spain, based on
user-installed telematics systems. Both of these markets are being
served from the Company's offices in Newtown, Wales, and no
recruitment or infrastructure in the local markets has been
necessary.
Market development focus is now centred on support for the
Hispanic market in the USA, both for existing clients and the
development of further market potential. A dedicated site for
Ireland will also be released in the near future.
The Board will continue to increase sales and marketing
investment in both new and existing fleet territories, in order to
drive future Fleet tracking division growth, in line with market
expectations for financial performance.
Insurance telematics
As previously outlined, new installations for our insurance
clients have continued to decline and are expected to be
approximately 8,300 units in the first quarter, which is 35% lower
than they were in the same period of 2018. This is in line with the
Board's expectations and the Insurance telematics division remains
a profitable contributor to the Group.
Operations and product developments
User-install options have maintained their growth in popularity
and the Company therefore continues to invest in the development of
its application, commercial and back-office systems to support
these products. Further development of both existing and new
telematics products at the core of these options is also
planned.
Current development of Quartix's tracking application is focused
on the enhancement of self-service and configuration options for
all markets, enabling customers to create, configure and schedule
the delivery of a broader range of operational reports to all of
their users. This work continues alongside the support for
additional languages and markets.
Andy Walters, Chief Executive Officer of Quartix Holdings plc,
commented: "We are delighted with the progress made in our fleet
business in the first quarter. Growth in new customer acquisition
and new vehicle installations has accelerated and we have launched
our telematics service in two new markets. We look forward to the
rest of 2019 and beyond with confidence."
Footnote:
* The Board believes that consensus market expectations for
2019, prior to this announcement, were as follows: Revenue:
GBP24.1; Adjusted EBITDA GBP6.7m; Free Cash Flow: GBP5.4m.
For further information, please contact:
Quartix (www.quartix.net)
Andrew Walters, Chief Executive
Daniel Mendis, Chief Financial Officer 01686 806 663
finnCap (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
Matt Goode / Scott Mathieson (Corporate
Finance)
Alice Lane (ECM) 020 7220 0500
Cantor Fitzgerald (Joint Broker)
Catherine Leftley 020 7894 7000
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END
AGMUVRKRKRAOUAR
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