Growth at The Share Centre drives revenue at Share
Updated : 15:45
Share, operator of independent retail stockbroker The Share Centre updated the market on its trading for the third quarter of the financial year to 31 December on Tuesday, reporting that performance in the quarter was in line with upgraded management expectations, with revenues excluding interest increasing 29% year-on-year.
The AIM-traded company said the increase reflected the benefit of book acquisitions, healthy trading volumes and net account transfers-in from other brokers.
Assets held on behalf of customers also rose, increasing 24% to £4.5bn year-on-year.
That was a 6% increase quarter-on-quarter, ahead of the 1% growth in the FTSE All Share Index over the period.
Share said its market share of peer group* revenues excluding interest continued to increase and, for the third quarter, its share was 13.9%.
This compared to 12.9% in the second quarter, and 10.0% in the same period last year.
Including interest, Share's market share in the third quarter was 10.5%, against 9.7% in the second quarter and 7.7% a year ago.
In October, the company completed a “significant upgrade” to the functionality of its first mobile app, launched in August 2016, enabling customers to trade and fund their accounts from the app.
The board said it expected the new functionality to help drive user numbers.
“The company is continuing to make good progress,” said chief executive Richard Stone.
“The 29% rise in third quarter revenue relative to the same period in 2016 is encouraging, and reflects both our own brand activity and the impact of new partnerships and book acquisitions.
“We are also pleased to see our market share rising to 13.9% in Q3 against 10.0% in Q3 2016.”
Stone also noted that The Share Centre team achieved “further success” this month, winning its first non-industry specific award, with a UK Customer Experience Award for its Digital Transformation Programme.
“We continue to build strong foundations for profitable growth and look forward to the future with confidence.”