Monitise (MONI) investors were left reeling after shares in the mobile payments specialist tumbled 18 per cent. The slump came after Monitise slashed its full-year revenue forecast from £102m to £95-97m, implying sales growth as low as 31 per cent. That's sluggish given that it nearly doubled its sales annually over the past five years.
It blamed the downgrade on a surprisingly quick shift from its previous licensing model to its new subscription-based one. Monitise now expects lower upfront revenues to drive full-year cash losses of £32-£36m up to 87 per cent higher from last year.
The severe share price fall may also reflect its purchase of Markco Media - owner of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk - as a discounting and ticketing business isn't an obvious fit for Monitise.
There were some bright spots. Monitise's bank, pay and buy platforms boasted 30 million users at the end of June, 30 per cent more than a year ago. And the value of its transfers and payments rose 120 per cent to £88bn on an annualised basis. Monitise also intends to achieve profitability in 2016 and expects to have 200m registered users by the end of June 2018.
