Cupid have made “significant progress” in the first half of the year, shareholders will be told today.
Chairman George Elliott and chief executive Phil Gripton said that the company’s earnings before tax and revenue all indicated progress in 2014.
In a statement, they said:
“The board is pleased to report that the company has made significant progress in the first half of 2014 towards achieving the operational goals stated in its annual report. The EBITDA loss is estimated to be £3m, which is better than anticipated.
“We further estimate that revenue for the first half will be £7m, slightly lower than management’s expectations. The stronger EBITDA result has been achieved through the close management of costs, which in turn will enable us to end the half with £11m of cash (pre-dividend).”
In their annual review of 2013, the Edinburgh-based company reported a loss of £7.9m, compared with a profit of £9.2m in 2012.
Their revenues at the end of December were £26.6m, the year before they were £26.7m.
Cupid said they were looking towards long term revenues and improving customer service for the future.
In an interview with The Scotsman, Phil Gripton said they “have to change from being a dating only business to being a scaleable technology play.
“The dating business is in turnaround but we have a unique opportunity in having a lot of data we can use.”
An example of this broadening of focus was their partnership with Sprylogics, who own Poynt, to allow their users to plan and book events in-app.
This is alluded to in today’s statement to shareholders:
“The dating market continues to report growth and our strategy of focussing on niches remains a strong option. There is however increasing pressure from the advance of a new breed of more intuitive, mobile, social dating applications.
“We continue to develop our core offering and will address this development in our on-going strategy. As planned we have started to invest in our data adtech proposition and will continue with that as our plans progress to initial revenues in H2.”