27 October 2021

Vianet Group plc

("Vianet" or the "Group")

Trading Update and Notice of Results

Vianet Group plc (AIM: VNET), the international provider of actionable data and business insight through devices connected to its Internet of Things platform ("IOT"), today announces the following trading update and notifies that it will release its results for the six months ended 30 September 2021 on Tuesday, 7 December 2021.

About Us and What We Do

Vianet is an international provider of internet enabled, cloud based, telemetric services to the hospitality, and unattended retail vending, and remote asset management sectors.

The Group's Smart Zones division provides unparalleled quality management, business intelligence and waste management services to the drinks retailing industry.

Our Smart Machines division provides innovative real time monitoring, business intelligence and data insights for unattended vending machines that maximises operational efficiency, stock control and cash flow.

Market Developments 

The easing of Covid-19 restrictions has meant that the Smart Zones division has benefitted from strong momentum in Q2. Almost all our clients are now fully operational, and this has resulted in a strong rebound in revenues.

In the Smart Machines Division some 70% of our unattended machines have been fully operational throughout the pandemic. The gradual re-opening of city centres and the continued demand for cashless vending solutions has resulted in new sales and a 12.9% increase in total connected devices which has further contributed towards our strong H1 performance.

Working with our suppliers, we have so far managed to mitigate the impact of the global semi-conductor supply shortages on customer installation programmes, however this has resulted in paying marginally higher stock premiums for components.

Operational and Financial Updates

We are pleased to confirm the strong recovery in the Group's revenues through H1, with turnover up 55% to £6.3m (H1 2020: £4.1m and H1 2019: £8.4m) and pleasingly slightly above our expectations for the first six months of the year given restrictions ran late into the period and our supply chain costs were marginally higher. Whilst new device sales are encouraging the recurring revenues from long term customers have bounced back to being c. 90% of turnover.

From the outset of the pandemic, we have worked closely with our customers and have focused on managing our cash. We remain confident that the Group has adequate funding to support our ongoing business requirements as well as our planned investment for a sustained period.

We remain committed to our strategy of development and delivery of our product roadmap to improve the quality of our existing revenue streams and to take advantage of the exciting growth opportunities we see ahead.

Subject to no further lockdowns or restrictions on the hospitality sector and no deterioration of semi-conductor supply, we expect H2 cash generation will enable the Board to reinstate a dividend in July for FY2022.

James Dickson, Chairman of Vianet, commented:

"Our focus, throughout the pandemic, has been on working closely with our customers and suppliers, shrewd cash management and ensuring we come through it in a strong position to take advantage of the clear opportunities in remote asset management, contactless payment and market data insights.

"Whilst Covid-19 and Brexit related challenges may endure for some time, our ongoing investment in product and people is creating real momentum, and I am confident that the Group has the team and financial wherewithal to drive growth for a sustained period, as the demand for both data and contactless solutions grows.

"I am pleased to confirm that, subject to no further lockdowns or restrictions on the hospitality sector in H2, and a degree of relative stability in the semi-conductor supply chain, we expect to reinstate a dividend in July for FY2022."

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About Vianet

Vianet Group is a leading provider of actionable management information and business insight created through combining data from our smart Internet of Things ('IOT') solutions and external information sources.

Since Admission to AIM in 2006, the Group has grown from its core beer monitoring business both organically and through strategic acquisitions to widen its offering and develop new businesses, especially in vending telemetry and contactless payment solutions particularly for the premium coffee sector.

Servicing over 300 customers across the world and rendering live data to our IOT platform from over 250,000 connected machines daily, Vianet is one of the largest business to business (b2b) connected solutions providers in Europe with established long-term relationships with blue chip customers and growing recurring revenues which are over 85% of our total revenues.

In our Smart Machines Division, we connect a single data gathering device with its own on-board communication capability to a customer's asset or system. The device then sends data back via our IOT platform to cloud based servers. The technology was originally developed for automated retailing machines; however, the flexibility and functionality of the device means the technology can be applied to practically any machine which has the capability to output data. The device is also used to connect our contactless payment solution and communicate payment terms to our cloud-based payment services providers where that application is also required.

The Smart Zones Division is where we connect multiple data gathering devices into one or more systems or assets with the data from those devices being communicated back to our IOT platform and cloud-based servers via a single 3G communications hub. The technology was originally developed for flow monitoring devices, temperature sensors, and asset management in drinks retailing but practically any data gathering device with a digital output could be connected to the communications hub where required such as gaming machines, utilities management and EPOS.

For further information, please visit www.vianetplc.com