Drinks and vending tech firm Vianet is eyeing a significant jump in profits this year in a move that would surpass market expectations.
The North East specialist in data capture for hospitality firms says operating profits could be boosted about 30% this year to £3.1m amid contract renewals and new business. Ahead of full year results in early June, the Stockton-based firm told the London Stock Exchange it expects turnover to be up 7% to over £14m.
Vianet has weathered a challenging period in which Covid severely impacted its customer base of around 10,000 pubs and bars, and global supplies of critical semiconductor chips hampered production. However, in its latest update to investors the firm said it was returning to pre-pandemic levels of profit to cash conversion.
Read more: Heineken supporting 600 new jobs with £40m pubs upgrade
Bosses hailed gross margins of 65% and said there had been a focus on the launch and the migration of existing customers to its SmartVend vending management platform, and also the launch of SmartDraught - a drinks management system for hospitality operators. The firm also said that following research and development losses in 2021 and 2022 it expected to received a £900,000 tax rebate with an estimated £1.8m of remaining historic trading losses carried forward and applied to the 2023 tax calculations
James Dickson, chairman of Vianet, said: "Despite facing challenging economic conditions and global supply chain pressures, I am delighted that a strong team performance has resulted in the group making significant progress on several key projects and initiatives and on delivering good financial results. The continued progress we have made means we are excited about our FY 2024 prospects to accelerate our vending connection footprint, resume growth in our UK hospitality operations, gain significant traction in new verticals, and achieve meaningful expansion for Vianet Americas."
Vianet boasts of around 300 customers across its two main divisions: its Smart Machines offer which gives operators data from devices such as vending machines, and its Smart Zones offer which connects multiple data gathering devices and was originally developed for the drinks retailing market but is also applied to gaming machines, utilities management. and point of sale systems.
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