TIDMVNET
RNS Number : 6052J
Vianet Group PLC
28 April 2022
28 April 2022
Vianet Group plc
("Vianet" or the "Group")
Trading Update and Notice of Results
Vianet Group plc (AIM: VNET), the international provider of
actionable data and business insight through devices connected to
its Internet of Things platform ("IOT"), today announces the
following trading update, and notifies that it will release its
results for the year ended 31 March 2022 on Tuesday, 14 June
2022.
About Us and What We Do
Vianet is an international provider of internet enabled, cloud
based, telemetric services to the hospitality, unattended retail
vending, and remote asset management sectors.
The Group's Smart Zones division provides unparalleled product
quality and waste management, business intelligence and stock
management services to the drinks retailing industry.
Our Smart Machines division provides innovative real time
monitoring, software management applications, business intelligence
and data insights for unattended vending machines that
significantly improve operational efficiency, stock control, sales,
and cash flow, whilst also reducing our customers' carbon
footprint.
Market Developments
The positive momentum experienced by the Smart Zones division in
Q2 as COVID-19 restrictions eased has continued through H2. The
majority of the Group's customers are now fully operational and,
although conditions remain difficult for operators in some segments
of the hospitality industry, this has resulted in a strong rebound
in our revenues over the second half of the year.
In the Smart Machines division, two material contract wins, the
gradual re-opening of city centres and the continued demand for
cashless vending solutions have resulted in new sales and an
increase of over 20% in total connected devices. This has further
contributed towards our strong H2 performance.
We continue to work with our suppliers to mitigate the impact of
the global semi-conductor supply shortages on customer installation
programmes. Whilst supply is being maintained, we are now paying
increasingly higher premiums for certain components of our
hardware, and this is expected to continue through FY2023. Where
customer terms allow, we seek to recoup these additional hardware
costs however the overriding commercial imperative is to keep the
sales pipeline flowing to grow the installation footprint and
corresponding recurring income.
Operational and Financial Updates
We are pleased to confirm the strong recovery in the Group's
revenues through H2, with full year turnover expected to be up 55%
to almost GBP13.0m (FY 2021: GBP8.4m and FY 2020: GBP16.3m). This
is a welcome result given that hospitality restrictions ran longer
into the year than anticipated and whilst ongoing city centre
economic recovery remains muted.
New contract wins and device sales are encouraging and the
recurring revenues from long term customers remains high at over
85% of turnover.
Operating profit is anticipated to be GBP2.2m (FY 2021: GBP0.7m
loss and FY 2020: GBP4.0m) which is in line with market
expectations.
Over the past two years, we have worked closely with our
customers, and focused on managing our cash whilst maintaining
investment. We remain committed to our strategy of the development
and delivery of our product roadmap to improve the quality of our
existing revenue streams, and to take advantage of the exciting
growth opportunities we see ahead.
The Group's strong recurring revenue base and new sales momentum
will underpin the funding required to support our ongoing business
requirements as well as our planned investment for a sustained
period.
Whilst cash generation continues to improve, the Board is
mindful that the well-publicised deterioration of semi-conductor
supply globally will result in component premiums through FY2023.
In these circumstances the Board believes it is prudent to preserve
cash to invest in stock to underpin new sales and drive continued
growth in quality recurring income. We therefore expect to delay
reinstating a dividend until we have clear line of sight on a
return to more normal semi-conductor supply.
James Dickson, Chairman of Vianet, commented:
"Against a challenging backdrop I am pleased that the full year
sales line recovered to over 80 per cent. of pre-pandemic levels
despite the longer than expected timeframe of restrictions being in
place and importantly we have maintained strong momentum into the
current year.
"Whilst component supply chain pressures are likely to have some
impact on hardware installation margins into 2023, we are excited
about our sales pipeline and the opportunity we have to
significantly grow our high-quality recurring income streams."
- Ends -
Enquiries:
Vianet Group plc
James Dickson, Chairman & Interim Tel: +44 (0) 1642 358
CEO 800
Mark Foster, CFO www.vianetplc.com
Cenkos Securities plc
Stephen Keys / Camilla Hume Tel: +44 (0) 20 7397
8900
www.cenkos.com
Media enquiries:
Yellow Jersey PR
Sarah Hollins Tel: +44 (0)7764 947
Henry Wilkinson 137
vianet@yellowjerseypr.com Tel: +44 (0)7951 402
336
www.yellowjerseypr.com
About Vianet
Vianet Group is a leading provider of actionable management
information and business insight created through combining data
from our smart Internet of Things ('IOT') solutions and external
information sources.
Since Admission to AIM in 2006, the Group has grown from its
core beer monitoring business both organically and through
strategic acquisitions to widen its offering and develop new
businesses, especially in vending telemetry and contactless payment
solutions particularly for the premium coffee sector.
Servicing over 300 customers across the world and rendering live
data to our IOT platform from over 250,000 connected machines
daily, Vianet is one of the largest business to business (b2b)
connected solutions providers in Europe with established long-term
relationships with blue chip customers and growing recurring
revenues which are over 85% of our total revenues.
In our Smart Machines division, we connect a single data
gathering device with its own on-board communication capability to
a customer's asset or system. The device then sends data back via
our IOT platform to cloud based servers. The technology was
originally developed for automated retailing machines; however, the
flexibility and functionality of the device means the technology
can be applied to any machine which has the capability to output
data. The device is also used to connect our contactless payment
solution and communicate payment terms to our cloud-based payment
services providers where that application is also required.
The Smart Zones division is where we connect multiple data
gathering devices into one or more systems or assets with the data
from those devices being communicated back to our IOT platform and
cloud-based servers via a single 3G communications hub. The
technology was originally developed for flow monitoring devices,
temperature sensors, and asset management in drinks retailing but
any data gathering device with a digital output could be connected
to the communications hub where required such as gaming machines,
utilities management and EPOS.
For further information, please visit www.vianetplc.com
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