South African-founded and London-listed iTouch, a mobile services provider, has reported a loss per share of 1.1p for the first quarter of 2001, compared with a 0.3p loss per share for the same quarter last year.
Turnover for the three months to March soared to lb2.61 million from lb196 000 for the year-earlier period. A loss of lb2.02 million before amortisation, depreciation and incentive scheme charges compares with a previous loss of lb509 000.
An operating loss of lb3.79 million (2000: lb929 000) was incurred.
"iTouch is currently in the early stages of development and, as expected, is incurring losses at the operating level," says chairman Ivan Fallon.
He comments that cost control has been firm, with considerable savings achieved against budget in discretionary areas.
"Our corporate business continues to develop strongly. We now have active Corporate SMS businesses in all countries," he adds.
"We had an average of 328 corporate customers during the first quarter, an increase of 38% over the fourth quarter."
The consumer business also made good progress. "SMS Content has performed particularly well with an average of over 31 000 registered users during the first quarter (of whom over 50% had received a message in the previous month), an increase of 63% over the fourth quarter."
Revenue growth was recorded by operations in the UK, Ireland, SA and Australia. The Israeli joint venture also made a good start to the year, Fallon says.
He says iTouch has made an "excellent start to the year", with growth continuing into the second quarter.
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