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Boku Inc on Tuesday reported a rise in annual revenue but suffered a fall in profit on an impairment charge. Boku shares were up 6.0% to 132.00 pence each on Tuesday morning in London. The San Francisco, California-based mobile payments provider said revenue was rose 2.7% to $63.8 million in 2022 from $62.1 million in 2021. Pretax profit more than halved to $4.1 million from $9.9 million, however, as operating profit fell to $4.5 million from $10.6 million a year earlier. Boku said it incurred a fair value adjustment charge of $3.5 million in relation to warrants over Boku shares that were granted to Amazon.com Inc back in September. It also impaired the carrying value of the Fortumo brand by $1.3 million. Boku signed a new multi-year global local payment method contract with Amazon in the second half of 2022 and issued warrants for Boku shares to Amazon as part of the deal. Administrative expenses rose to $58.2 million in 2022 from $51.0 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation declined to $20.5 million from $22.9 million in 2021. Adjusted Ebitda margin was 32%. Boku said that revenue and adjusted Ebitda were both hurt by ‘significant currency headwinds’. On the plus side, Boku reported a 28% increase in monthly active users to 52.3 million in December, compared to 41.0 million in 2021. Chief Executive Officer Jon Prideaux said: ‘2022 has been a breakout year. Boku’s growth became primarily driven not by [direct carrier billing], but by mobile wallets and account-to-account/real time payments. By the end of the year, nearly 7% of our monthly active users and more than double that percentage of our revenue came from these newer payment methods.’ Cash amounted to $116.5 million at year-end, up from $67.8 million on June 30. Boku declared no dividend for 2022, unchanged from 2021. Looking ahead, the company said it is well set for further progress. It noted that trading in January and February has been strong, with new customers wins. Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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