Tech firm sees revenues rise but losses widen
LightwaveRF, the Birmingham-based provider of smart home solutions, has posted a revenue rise of almost 50% but saw losses widen in its 2019 results.
For the year to the end of September, the listed company reported revenue of £4.09m (2018: £2.81m), up 46%, but said it experienced a challenging last quarter, which prompted a profit warning in November, with revenue held back mostly due to working capital and reduced digital marketing spend and revenue slippage.
The company reported a loss before and after taxation £3.61m (2018: £2.54m) but Lightwave said that although the loss increased, cash absorbed by operations decreased significantly to £1.94m (2018 £2.95m).
Lightwave made a £1.34m investment in research and development in the period.
Jason Elliott, chief executive of Lightwave, said: “We continue to see a substantial market opportunity for Lightwave demonstrated by month on month revenue growth for the first three quarters of the year.
“Despite revenue being held back in the final quarter, we are pleased to see that our revenue was up almost 50% during the year to £4.09m, with revenue for Q1 2020 almost returning to levels seen in early 2019. This increase in sales has been driven in part by our expansion into the professional channels and improved direct to consumer sales, which increased our Smart Series customers threefold.
“We believe that Lightwave is well positioned to execute in this rapidly developing market.”
In November, Lightwave announced it was to conduct a formal review of the company, including a potential sale of the business, two weeks after issuing its profit warning.
The company said the business would benefit from additional finance from a financial or larger corporate partner in order to support the board’s growth plan.
The move towards a sale follows the company’s profit warning earlier this month, when in it said that substantial progress made in annual revenue growth had been hampered by a “number of one-off issues” in the last quarter of its financial year.
