- Revenue grew 26.7%, mainly due to a boost in client base and the growth of smart technology projects won from Singapore’s public sector.
- Gross profit rose 28.5% arising from manpower related costs as challenges in employee retention have driven up both staff remuneration and outsourcing costs.
- Profit before tax reached S$1.96 million (HKD 11.44 million1) from a loss a year ago.
Anacle Systems Limited (HKG: 8353), which is an IT company offering smart energy, asset and estate management solutions for companies, towns and cities in Asia, reports a record jump in profit before tax of 491% for its first six months ended 30 November 2020 (“1H FY2020”). The turnaround to profit from a loss a year ago was supported by an increase in client base and the growth in investment on smart technology by the public sector in Singapore.
The Group reported revenue of S$10.24 million which was a 26.7% increase from last year. This was boosted by the Group’s software solution Simplicity, which saw a 54.8% or S$3.07 million in-crease in revenue. The Group derived a majority of its revenue from Simplicity, an enterprise soft-ware that offers specific solutions for municipal councils, commercial and corporate real estate man-agement firms, as well as industrial asset management.
As compared to the same quarter last financial year, the Group has increased its customer base and Simplicity’s order book was healthier this year. The Singapore market remained the major source of revenue for Simplicity. The overall increase in both maintenance services and project revenue re-sulted in an overall increase in Simplicity’s revenue.
The Group’s pay-per-use utility revenue platform, myBill, reported number of subscriptions were sta-bilising in the hundred thousand of subscriptions each month. A one-off renewal rebate for myBill contributed to a temporary dip of 15.6% or S$142,557 in myBill’s revenue. Subscription to myBill platform has been increasing steadily since its launch in June 2018. The Group expects that the number of subscriptions will continue to increase in the coming quarters due to Singapore’s liberal-ised electricity market. Known as the Open Electricity Market, the liberalised electricity market in Singapore will mean that energy retailers will not know in advanced how many customers they can sign up. myBill platform offers energy retailers an economical and reliable utilities billing service to their customers on a pay-per-use scheme, saving energy retailers the need to invest in multi-million dollar billing software.
Starlight, a cloud-based smart energy and water management platform, faced installation constraints due to the Covid-19 pandemic and as result, revenue from Starlight dipped by 56.6% or S$829,043. Recurring service and leasing revenue have increased as the existing customer base remained sta-ble.
Meanwhile, subscriptions to SpaceMonster, an online portal that matches in-demand needs for meetings and leisure activities, continued to increase as more venues were coming onboard and achieved a 59.6% or S$58,223 increase in revenue. Gross profit of SpaceMonster remained healthy at 97.7%.
The Group’s overall gross profit increased by 28.5% to S$906,211 due mainly to an increase in rev-enue. Simplicity’s gross profit was 38.4% as compared to 42.7% last year. myBill, currently in its third year of operations, reported that the number of subscriptions continued to increase and yielded a growth in gross profit of 37.3% from 28.3% last year.
Commenting on the Group’s 1H FY2020 results, Mr Alex Lau, Chief Executive Officer of Anacle said: “Our 1H FY2020 results is a testament of our corporate objective, which is to achieve sustainable growth for long-term shareholder value. The turnaround in being profitable is a starting point as we will continue to implement more stringent capital structure to ensure the Group contin-ues to have the financial strength and flexibility to meet our corporate objective.
“With the focus on digitalisation for many enterprises and public section agencies due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Singapore and Southeast Asian markets for enterprise application software re-main robust and are expected to grow throughout 2021. Thus, we expect Simplicity, myBill and SpaceMonster to continue to perform well. However, the situation with Starlight is much more com-plex. We continue to witness relentless push for wide scale Smart City projects throughout South-east Asia, however until the Covid-19 pandemic improves, constraints on site installations will con-tinue to pose a challenge, limiting short-term revenue.”
About Anacle Systems Limited
Established in 2006, Anacle is a fast-growing IT company based in Singapore. Anacle offers enter-prise application software designed to assist commercial property and building owners in managing their real estate assets and facilities, including energy and water management.
Besides researching, designing, developing and implementing software and hardware solutions, Anacle also provides updates, maintenance and after-sales support to its clients. Its products reach end-users across Singapore, Malaysia, China, and other parts of Asia, and across various industries including commercial real estate, education, healthcare, government, utilities, and oil and gas.
Media contacts:
Ang Shih Huei / Karen Yap
Klareco Communications
sang@klarecocomms.com / kyap@klarecocomms.com
+65 9189 1039 / +65 8133 6201