Bleak outlook for blinkx
November 11, 2014
blinkx, the the London AIM-listed online video advertising company, has reported falling revenues and fell into a loss in the six months to the end of September. Shares were down 3 per cent in early trading.
blinkx’s revenues declined by 5 per cent to $106 million. The company also reported a loss before tax of $9.8 million compared with a profit of $10.7 million in the same period the year before. It still has $115 million cash left on its balance sheet, partly thanks to a placing last December.
blinkx makes money by using digital filters to place video and banner advertising alongside relevant videos. Once a high-flyer shares have fallen to just over a tenth of their January highs after Ben Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard University, wrote a critical blog post attacking the legitimacy of its traffic figures and raising questions about the group’s links to adware companies.
blinkx published a detailed rebuttal and complained to the Financial Conduct Authority about market manipulation.
The company’s troubles have been compounded by a broader consumer shift from desktop to mobile video, analysts said, as well as industry difficulties in measuring people audiences as opposed to online bots.
The company said that it expected similar results in the second half of the year as its investment in mobile continued, adding: “We are taking steps to reallocate resources to emerging channels, specifically around mobile video and automated trading.” Mobile accounted for 20 per cent of the company’s revenues, up from 1 per cent in the same period the year before.
Blinkx was spun out of Autonomy, the UK data analytics group bought by HP a deal now mired in litigation.