Following a record final quarter of 2018, SafeCharge has published its financial results for the full year of 2018 this Wednesday, with the firm achieving revenues towards the upper end of its revised expectations.
SafeCharge, a payments technology company, posted a revenue of $138.5 million, which represents a solid growth of 24 percent when measured against 2017, which had total revenue of $111.7 million.
As Finance Magnates previously reported, in November of last year, SafeCharge stated that it expected revenue would beat market expectations for the full year and fall within the range of $135-138 million.
Following its solid final quarter, the UK-based company revised its forecast in a trading update in January 2019, with the full year total revenue forecast to fall between $137.5 and $138.5 million, which, as today’s announcement shows, revenue came in towards the top end of this revised expectation.
According to the statement released this Wednesday, the strong revenue growth was largely driven by onboarding new customers, as well as expanding the relationships with its existing customers.
Transaction Volumes Soar in 2018
The number of transactions made in 2018 comes in at 255.1 million, which is an increase of 47 percent year-on-year, up from 2017’s figure of 173.8 million. In terms of transaction value, 2018 achieved a result of $13.93 billion. This is up by 45 percent on an annual comparison.
As the company previously outlined, it expected to achieve a processed volume for its 2018 fiscal year of $14 billion. As can be seen, this estimate is very close to the actual result revealed today.
David Avgi, the CEO of SafeCharge
Source: SafeCharge
Commenting on the results, David Avgi, the CEO of SafeCharge, said: "The year 2018 was another period of strong financial performance and continued growth. We demonstrated excellent performance and successful entry into new markets and verticals. We have continued to innovate, develop and deliver our payment products and technologies, enabling us to deepen our relationships and win new business with large scale customers.”
Another highlight for the technology firm in 2018 was that it was granted a Payment Institution license by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ), as Finance Magnates reported back in January of 2018.
SafeCharge Expects 2018 Momentum to carry into 2019
Alongside today’s results, the Board of SafeCharge has already issued its forecasts for 2019, with revenues expected to be in the range of $155 million to $165 million. Furthermore, the Payments technology firm expects Adjusted EBITDA to fall between $40 million and $42 million.
These figures, according to the statement, will be driven by continued growth from its existing customers, as well as new customers acquired in 2019. Already, the company claims to be on its way to achieving this, with momentum from the final quarter of 2018 carrying into the start of 2019.
“During 2019 we will continue to invest in building our sales teams to accelerate our entry into new markets, as well as to invest further in innovative products to our customers. We are only at the beginning of our journey. Our highly scalable proprietary Payments Engine has been designed to deliver superior performance translating into a better user experience and increased revenues for our customers," added Avgi.
