Mirada issues profit warning due to slowdown in Iris roll out
Mirada, an AIM listed audio visual content interaction specialist, is expecting profit before tax to be “substantially lower” than market expectations due to an obstacle in the way of its Iris product launch.
Iris is Mirada's state-of-the-art TV anywhere proposition wherein multi-screen solution merges the best of traditional broadcast and over the top (OTT) services, presenting an easy-to-use, unified user experience across multiple devices.
The company’s major customer Televisa plans to increase its quality assurance process on deploying new cities to avoid disruptions in their network, which is expected to lead to short term slowdown in the rollout of its Iris.
The acquisition of new subscribers and projected licence fees on new city deployments over the rest of the current financial year are expected to stagger. This and the result of the uncertain economic situation in Mexico in the wake of the US election has led to the board taking a more conservative view on the speed of the Televisa rollout over the longer term.
The board does, however, feel that new business win should more than compensate for the Televisa delay over the medium to longer term. Improved sales and marketing efforts mean that the company’s pipeline of opportunities is currently larger than ever before with a number of these opportunities progressing well.
Chief executive Jose Luis Vazquez said: "Although it is disappointing that, for reasons beyond Mirada's control, we are anticipating a slowdown in the Televisa rollout, the Televisa contract remains unchanged, and provides the company with an exceptional reference.
"As such, the company's pipeline of opportunities, particularly in South East Asia and Latin America, is growing rapidly, having more than doubled in the past ten weeks alone. We are in advanced discussions with a number of these potential clients on which we expect to provide a further update in due course."
The share price fell 33.33% at 2.75p at 1523 GMT.