2018 Financial performance
- End User Spend (EUS) increased 106% to £558.2m (2017: £271.4m)
- Revenue increased 60% to £6.62m (2017: £4.15m)
- Total admin costs were £6.69m (2017: £5.72m)
- Adjusted LBITDA* improved to -£0.87m (2017: -£1.57m), with positive EBITDA for 4Q18
- Operating loss improved to -£3.5m (2017: -£3.9m)
- Cash at 31 December 2018 was £3.81m (31 December 2017: £4.85m)
*Adjusted LBITDA is loss before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization, share based payment charge and non-recurring items.
2018 Operational performance
- New customers and payment routes: Launches included Pandora, Amazon Prime and Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) routes in Chile, Brazil, India, UK, USA and Philippines
- New product launch: Launched new data product, Bango Marketplace to open up the Bango Platform directly to the thousands of app developers for the first time
- Acquisition of Audiens CDP: Technology successfully integrated into Bango Platform, enabled accelerated launch of Bango Marketplace
- Capacity increase: Transaction processing capacity increased to in excess of £10bn a year
Outlook
- Payment platform growth: End User Spend through Bango Platform expected to grow in excess of 100% in 2019 with growth from established and new routes
- Expanded opportunity: New revenue stream from app developers buying from Bango Marketplace.Payment providers will benefit by upgrading to Bango
- Audiens CDP growth: Initial success of Audiens CDP in Italy expanding to other countries and continuing growth established in 2018
- Thriving ecosystem: Large and strategically valuable opportunity to enable prosperity by linking $50bn/yr app marketing industry with global payment infrastructure
- Investment in future: Increased investment in the data opportunity, alongside growth and profitability of the payment business, is expected to drive revenue and profit from 2020 onwards. 2019 is projected to be profitable, but at a lower level than previously forecast
- Bango expects to generate sufficient cash to cover both the operational costs of the business and the continued investment in product development in the coming year.
Ray Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of Bango, commented: “2018 was an important and successful year for Bango. Strong growth in revenues, growth in the core payments business, and expansion of the business to providing data insights for app developer marketing, all provide a powerful platform for a profitable 2019 and prosperous long-term future. The increasing value of Bango in mobile commerce, demonstrated by triple-digit growth in End User Spend (EUS), was accomplished on a stable cost-base with increased transaction processing capacity. This demonstrates the power of the Bango Platform .
"App developers, app stores, merchants and payment providers are crossing the threshold into the Bango ecosystem to collaborate, grow and thrive. More mobile commerce throughout the Bango Platform will deliver value from both the established payment platform and also from the unique ability to securely and safely monetize anonymized payment data. This is the opportunity that Bango will focus on during 2019.”