Tuesday November 3, 12:44 PM
UPDATE 2-Blinkx H1 loss widens; to raise 5 mln stg via placing
By Purwa Naveen Raman
BANGALORE, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Online video search engine Blinkx Plc posted a wider first-half loss on increased expenses even as its revenue doubled, and said it would raise about 5 million pounds ($8.20 million) through a share placing.
The San Francisco and London based firm said it planned to place about 27.9 million shares at 18 pence apiece.
This represents a discount of 7.7 percent to the stock's Monday closing of 19.50 pence.
'What the placing lets us do is get very aggressive about the upturn,' founder and Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake said by phone.
'What we want to make sure is that we have got plenty of spare cash on the balance sheet so that we can move quickly on any opportunity we see, whether it is M&As or partnerships,' he added.
LOSS WIDENS, REVENUE RISES
The company's pretax loss widened to $7.3 million for the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with $3.4 million in the year-ago period.
Net loss was $7 million, which included $1.4 million of non-recurring costs related to infrastructure investments.
However, revenue rose to $13.1 million from $6.4 million in the year-ago period, helped by an increase in searches and better rates for advertisements.
The company said its customers included more new brands and repeat orders, resulting in a 238 percent increase in advertising campaigns over the previous half.
Daily video search run rate increased 249 percent to 17.4 million searches per day in September from the year-ago period.
Brands such as Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT - news) and Toyota booked campaigns through various ad agencies, the company said.
FASTER RECOVERY
Chandratillake said the company's cost per mille (CPM), the cost per thousand views of an ad, rose to $16.50 from $16.25 last period.
'One of the key reasons why our advertising CPM has gone up is because we offer a very interesting combination of advertising that is both targeted and accountable, so you can measure exactly how successful it is,' he said.
'Some of the traditional advertising markets have seen a drop in CPM of 10, 20 or even 30 percent, though we have seen ours increased, which I think point to the fact that the market is there and the pick-up or the recovery is happening early for us if anything,' he said.
Blinkx (LSE: BLNX.L - news) shares, which have gained almost 37 percent in the last three months through Monday, fell more than 5 percent to 18.5 pence by 1215 GMT on Tuesday on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: LSE.L - news) .
($1=.6101 Pound)
(Reporting by Purwa Naveen Raman in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel) Keywords: BLINKX/
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