iTouch, the South African mobile services company now listed in London, says the Big Brother reality television show helped its local subsidiary to report strong growth.
The company released its half-year results yesterday, reporting a more than five-fold increase in revenue to lb6 million, of which more than half was achieved in the second quarter.
But the company continued to burn cash and says its losses totalled lb7.6 million, or almost R100 million. This is down from the lb12.2 million it lost in the previous six months. The company has lb44.2 million in cash reserves, and says none of the proceeds from its London listing last year have been spent.
The group says its South African operation increased its revenues by 34% between the first and second quarters of this year. It attributes the growth mostly to Vodacom`s Infotext service, a product iTouch developed. The system allows users to send an information request via SMS which triggers a return SMS with information.
Another area of growth was in interactive voice response, where iTouch provides services to the local version of the Big Brother television show to enable the public to vote contestants out of the house.
In a release, the company says local corporate use of its products "continued to grow with an average 398 customers in the second quarter".
"I am confident that once corporate SA realises the immense productivity promises these applications bring to the mobile workforce, business mobility will be a dramatic growth market for us," says local CEO Greg Brophy.
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