Immotion Group plc (LON:IMMO), the UK immersive entertainment company, has this morning confirmed that it expects its unaudited H1 results to show a near EBITDA breakeven outcome on revenue of circa £2.7m*. As previously announced, June 2021 was our best ever monthly result with unaudited Group EBITDA of £126k on revenue of £850k (an uplift on the previously estimated figures), driven largely by the strong performance of the core Location-Based Entertainment business.
We caught up with CEO Martin Higginson to discuss today’s results.
We are further pleased to confirm that the second half of 2021 has started very strongly with July being yet another record month. Unaudited Group revenue was £1m, with unaudited EBITDA at circa £200k, a considerable increase versus June, taking the company into overall EBITDA profitability for the year to date. The growth in revenue in July (versus June) has been driven by improved trading in our LBE division, which benefitted from school holidays in both the USA and UK, driving LBE revenue to £922k (vs £732k in June).
This demonstrates the operational gearing of our business, with the increase in Group EBITDA versus June resulting in the main from the increase of £190k in LBE revenue. In addition, it is noteworthy that neither June nor July results benefitted from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme or US equivalent scheme.
Our Home-Based Entertainment (“HBE”) division’s main focus is on building its distribution network in order to fulfil the busy Q4 period when we expect consumer intent and marketing activity to rise sharply.
Enquiries for Uvisan disinfection cabinets continue to grow and we expect to see a significant increase in its revenue in the coming months.
Overall, we remain very optimistic about the prospects for H2, assuming no material reversal in the easing of pandemic related restrictions.
As can be seen, the impact of our growing LBE revenue has a significant impact on our income statement and we remain focused not only on maximising the performance of our current LBE portfolio but also the opportunities for growth in 2022 and beyond.
Martin Higginson, Immotion Group CEO said: ” In the circumstances we are very pleased with H1’s result. Hitting circa EBITDA breakeven in H1 is a major milestone, especially on Covid impacted revenues of £2.7m. With July revenue of £1m, we are now seeing clear evidence of the potential of our business.”
“The second half of the year has started very strongly, and this augurs well for a strong H2. The trading environment is now unrecognisable compared to the start of the year, as clearly demonstrated by the rapid increase in revenue and EBITDA. The investment in proprietary content, along with the technology to operate larger scale VR theatres, is starting to pay dividends and we are now looking ahead and planning for accelerated growth in 2022 from the plentiful growth opportunities we believe are in front of us.”
* H1 EBITDA includes the benefit of other income of £399k, comprised primarily of £117k forgiveness of the 2020 Paycheck Protection Program loan in the USA and £206k grants from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme in the UK. The revenue figure of £2.7m does not include these items.
