Photo-Me reports six-month revenue up 3%

The Group’s first-half performance was in line with expectations, delivering further revenue and profit growth and further expansion of the Laundry business,” according to a company statement. “Total revenue increased by 3.3% to £123.9 million and by 0.4% to £120.3 million on an underlying revenue basis. Profit before tax increased by 8.8% to £28.3 million and adjusted profit before tax improved 6.7% to £28.5 million (up 5.2% at constant currency). Excluding IFRS16 impact, profit before tax increased by 9.2% to £28.4 million.”

“The first half of the year saw robust performance despite a number of challenging headwinds. the Group remains focused on further expanding our Laundry market presence across a number of the core geographies in which we operate and across our product offering, from 24/7 self-service machines and laundrettes to B2B laundry services,” says Serge Crasnianski, CEO. “Our Identification business remains resilient and looking ahead, we expect to benefit from the introduction of mandatory renewal for ID cards in France from 2021 onwards. Our entry into the food market earlier in the year also provides the Group with a new additional platform for growth and will become an important component of our future growth strategy.

“The Group remains highly cash generative with £41.1 million of cash generated during the period, reflecting EBITDA margin improvement. The board remains confident that the Group will continue to perform in line with market expectations for the current financial year.”

The company stated it is developing a ‘ME’ concept store, where its services are grouped in one location, such as a supermarket and train stations, for convenience. This “one-stop-shop for Photo-Me services” would include launderette, photobooth, copier, kiosks, juice vending machines (service centre). The first trial is underway with a French supermarket retailer, Monoprix.

Kiosks segment report

High-quality digital printing services

The kiosk business has performed as expected in the period, the company said, with revenue up 6.1% due to the good performance of the kiosks relocated in the prior year from Photo-Me Retail shops in the UK to France. Kiosks continued to represent 12.0% of the total number of units in the Group’s total vending estate, the majority of which are located in France.

Capex reduced by 38.9%, in line with the group’s strategy to restrict investment in kiosks to premium sites with high footfall, and channel investment into the expansion of its laundry business.

Identification segment report

Photobooths and integrated biometric identification solutions

Outside of the UK, revenue from Identification remained stable at +0.8% year-on-year, underpinned by a robust performance in France (the Group’s largest market) and Japan, the company stated. There continue to be strong opportunities for the Group to work with governments and deploy secure upload photo ID technology, particularly in Continental Europe where, under European regulations, ID photos taken at home are not permitted for official documents due to security risks, according to Photo-Me. The group now has more than 12,000 photobooths connected to government organisations for the secure upload of photo ID in the UK and Continental Europe.

Total results summary