Interim Results, Analyst Briefing & Details of Investor Presentation

PCI-PAL PLC (AIM: PCIP), the global cloud provider of secure payment solutions for business communications, is pleased to announce its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December 2021.

Financial highlights for the period

• Revenue increased 72% year on year to £5.47 million (2020: £3.19 million)
• Gross margin improved to 81% (2020: 73%)
• Recurring revenues represent 90% of total revenue (2020: 86%)
• New ACV¹ contract sales in the period were £1.76 million (2020: £1.68 million)
• TACV² as of 31 December 2021 increased to £11.34 million (2020: £8.27 million)
• ARR³ as of 31 December 2021 increased to £8.96 million (2020: £5.89 million)
• Loss from operating activities in line with expectations at £1.10 million (2020: £2.15 million)
• Cash at period end of £5.53 million (30 June 2021: £7.52 million). The Group is debt free.

Operating highlights in the period

• Partner eco-system performing well and growing with 81% of new customer contracts from channel partners
• New business ACV ahead of management expectations
• Excellent upsell success within existing customer base resulting in strong NRR⁴ of 120%
• Customer retention strong throughout period, with churn⁵ at just 3.5%
• New strategic initiatives progressing despite challenging global hiring market:
  • Canada team established in December 2021
  • New product team resources hired during H1
• Strong operational performance with TTGL⁶ better than management expectations, and strong NPS⁷ scores for both delivery and service
• High employee retention at 96% despite challenging employment markets worldwide
• Added two new members to the PCI Pal Advisory Committee (“PAC”), both US-based with Customer Success, Cloud, and Product Management expertise
• Mounted robust defence and counterclaims to unfounded patent infringement allegations from competitor

Current trading

Strong trading momentum has continued into the second half with highlights since 31 December 2021 including:

• Strong start to H2 with new business sales in line with management expectations
• Revenue momentum continuing, with strong visibility of full year number
• Australian business launched with first hires now joined
• Won Best Compliance Product at the CX Awards 2022

¹ ACV is the annual recurring revenue generated from a contract.

² TACV is the total annual recurring revenue of all signed contracts, whether invoiced and included in deferred revenue or still to be deployed and/or not yet invoiced.

³ ARR is the Annual Recurring Revenue of all the deployed contracts.

⁴ NRR is the net retention rate of the contracts that are live on the AWS platform rate and is calculated using the opening total value of deployed contracts 12 months ago less the ACV of lost deployed contracts in the last 12 months plus the ACV of upsold contracts signed in the last 12 months all divided by the opening total value of deployed contracts at the start of the 12 month period.

⁵ Churn is calculated using the ACV of lost deployed contracts on the AWS platform in the last 12 months divided by the opening total value of deployed contracts 12 months ago.

⁶ TTGL is Time-To-Go-Live measurement used by the Group and defines the average time taken for a contract to be fully deployed from the date of signature of that contract.

⁷ Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty and satisfaction measurement taken from asking customers how likely they are to recommend your product or service to others.

Commenting on the results for the period, James Barham, Chief Executive Officer said:

“We have delivered another strong period of growth whilst at the same time making substantial progress against our expansion plans for the year.  I am particularly pleased that despite the headwinds of a challenging global hiring market, as well as the unfounded patent claims being made against us by a competitor, we have been able to continue to deliver on these expanded plans; growing revenue substantially; adding key new strategic resellers to our market-leading partner eco-system; and adding exciting new talent to our existing people resources.

“It is this execution against our current plans, as well as the long-term strategic opportunities in front of us through further expansion and product development, that give me great confidence in the outlook for the Company which remains on track to achieve market expectations for the current financial year.”

Analyst Briefing: 9.30am on Tuesday 1 March 2022

An online briefing for Analysts will be hosted by James Barham, Chief Executive Officer, and William Good, Chief Financial Officer, at 9.30am on Tuesday 1 March 2022 to review the results and prospects. Analysts wishing to attend should contact Walbrook PR on [email protected] or 020 7933 8780.

Investor Presentation: 3.00pm on Thursday 3 March 2022

The Directors will hold an investor presentation to cover the results and prospects at 3.00pm (UK time) on Thursday 3 March 2022.

The presentation will be hosted through the digital platform Investor Meet Company. Investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company and add to meet PCI-PAL PLC via the following link https://www.investormeetcompany.com/pci-pal-plc/register-investor For those investors who have already registered and added to meet the Company, they will automatically be invited.

Questions can be submitted pre-event to [email protected] or in real time during the presentation via the "Ask a Question" function. 

For further information, please contact:

About PCI Pal: 

PCI Pal is a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solutions that empower companies to take payments from their customers securely, adhere to strict industry governance, and remove their business from the significant risks posed by non-compliance and data loss. Our products secure payments and data in any business communications environment including voice, chat, social, email, and contact centre. We are integrated to, and resold by, some of the worlds’ leading business communications vendors, as well as major payment service providers.

The entirety of our product-base is available from our global cloud platform hosted in Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), with regional instances across EMEA, North America, and ANZ. PCI Pal products can be used by any size organisation globally, and we are proud to work with some of the largest and most respected brands in the world.

For more information visit www.pcipal.com or follow the team on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/pci-pal/