Enhancing Every Mobile Interaction
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Enhancing Every Mobile Interaction Boku, Inc. Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 Boku is the world’s leading carrier commerce company Boku’s Platform, which is linked to billing, identity and sales systems of more than 190+ mobile network operators, simplifies transacting on mobile devices. Boku’s Payment products enable mobile phone users, of which there are more than five billion worldwide, to buy goods and services and charge them to their mobile phone bill or pre-pay balance. Its Identity products are used to verify user details. Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, PayPal, Spotify, Square, Sony and Western Union use Boku to simplify sign-up, acquire new paying users and prevent fraud. We maintain a corporate website containing a wide range of information of interest to investors and stakeholders at www.boku.com Our customers STRATEGIC REPORT Highlights Strong Revenue Growth 50m 40m 30m $50m 20m $35m 10m $24m $17m 0 2016 2017 2018 2019 EBITDA Growth 2016 to 2020 Contents 15 Payments 10 Strategic Report 5 $12.7m Chairman’s Statement .................... 4 $6m Strategy Overview .......................... 5 0 ($2m) ($5.3m) Chief Executive Officer’s Report ....12 -5 ($12m) Identity Chief Financial Officer’s Report .....14 -10 Principal Risks 2016 2017 2018 2019 And Uncertainties .........................18 Governance Billable Transactions, Identity Board of Directors ........................ 20 300m Senior Management ..................... 22 250m Corporate Governance Report ...... 24 200m +45% Audit Committee Report .............. 30 150m 254m Remuneration 100m 175m Committee Report .........................32 50m 90m Directors’ Report .......................... 38 0 Directors 2017 2018 2019 Responsibility Statement .............. 40 Financials Total Payment Volume, Payments 500 Independent Auditor’s Report........41 450 +40% 400 Consolidated Statement of 350 Comprehensive Income ................ 46 300 250 Consolidated Statement of 200 Financial Position .........................47 $USD millions 150 100 Consolidated Statement of 50 Changes In Equity ........................ 48 Notes to the Consolidated 2017-11 2018-11 2016-11 2016-12 2017-01 2017-10 2017-12 2018-01 2018-10 2018-12 2019-11 2019-12 2016-01 2016-02 2016-03 2016-04 2016-05 2016-06 2016-07 2016-08 2016-09 2016-10 2017-02 2017-03 2017-04 2017-05 2017-06 2017-07 2017-08 2017-09 2018-02 2018-03 2018-04 2018-05 2018-06 2018-07 2018-08 2018-09 2019-01 2019-02 2019-03 2019-04 2019-05 2019-06 2019-07 2019-08 2019-09 2019-10 Financial Statements .................... 50 Stock code: BOKU Boku Inc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 3 STRATEGIC REPORT Chairman’s Statement 2019 has been a year of further progress for Boku. 019 has been a year of further Adjusted EBITDA more than doubled progress for Boku which resulted to $12.7 million (excluding the effect 2 in good revenue growth in both of $3.3 million of non-recurring Pay- Payments and Identity divisions leading ment revenue) up from $6.3 million to improved group Adjusted EBITDA. in 2018. A reconciliation from Adjust- These results have been delivered ed EBITDA* to net profit (FY18: loss) by the Boku Platform which connects after tax is on the face of the income many of the world’s largest digital statement. merchants to 190+ mobile network In January 2019, the company ac- operators. The first application of the quired Danal Inc. The strategic ob- Platform was to provide a payment jective was to build a global Identity mechanism allowing consumers to business leveraging Boku’s global carri- buy things and put the charge onto er network. The plan was to build out tunate to have a new Non-Executive their phone bill. Subsequently, identity capability during 2019 and be- Director in Stewart Roberts, formerly the company has launched other yond and for revenues within the US CFO at iZettle and a senior executive services leveraging the Platform and market to fund this expansion. Unfor- at Barclaycard and at RBS Worldpay. its connected merchant base and tunately, mobile network operators in Richard Hargreaves continues to chair carrier networks. the US have constrained their supply of the Remuneration Committee as the Senior Independent Director. I want Payments is the heart of our busi- identity data, including one completely shutting off the service, which led to a to thank them all for their service and ness. Leading companies like Apple, contribution to the company. Netflix, Spotify and Microsoft rely on performance below initial expectations. us to help them to recruit new paying Nevertheless, the Identity unit turned In 2020, the focus of the manage- users. Driven by a record number of in a creditable performance with reve- ment is to drive more volume through new carrier connections, payment nues growing 25% to $6.7 million and on the payment side as well as to de- volumes broke through the $5 billion Adjusted EBITDA losses reduced. velop the international side of the Identity business. With exposure to barrier for the year, 40% up on 2018’s There have been some changes on figure of $3.6 billion. Monthly Active the growth of mobile commerce, the the Board throughout the year. Stuart growth of digital and streaming servic- Users reached 17.8 million in Decem- Neal, the CFO who took Boku public ber, another new record. es and connections to the world’s lead- in 2017 moved within the company to ing telecoms operators, Boku is stra- These figures reinforce our position take up a new position as Chief Busi- tegically very well positioned. I look as the scale player in the sector. Scale ness Officer, Identity. His role was forward to another successful year. is important to platform businesses. filled by Keith Butcher who, was up Being the largest allows us to simulta- until that point, a non-executive Di- neously carry the cost base necessary rector of Boku and Chairman of Bo- Mark Britto to serve the world’s largest digital com- ku’s Audit Committee. Keith brings a NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN panies, whilst also being able to pro- wealth of AIM experience having been 25 M!"#$ 2020 cess incremental transactions at neg- CFO for AIM listed payments busi- *Adjusted EBITDA: Earnings before interest, tax, depre- ciation, amortisation, non-recurring payments revenue ligible cost. This leads to exceptional nesses Datacash plc and Optimal Pay- adjustment, stock option expense, foreign exchange gains/ operating leverage: in 2019, Payments ments plc (Paysafe). We are very for- (losses), and exceptional items. 4 Boku Inc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 www.boku.com STRATEGIC REPORT Mobile: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. here are more active SIMs on both locally and over the internet. Al- the planet than there are hu- though the distribution phase of the T mans. Smartphone penetra- mobile computing revolution is near- tion is not far behind, with approx- ing completion, the usage phase, the imately 4 billion in use worldwide, phase in which we figure out what to ranging from the most upmarket do with these things, is only just get- expensive iPhones to cheap Android ting started. The phone has already devices. displaced the PC as the most popular From its dawn with mainframes, way to buy things online, yet purchas- computing moved to the PC age, es from mobiles are still only a fraction which in its turn yielded to the march of the total opportunity. of the mobile device. Computing is no longer the province of governments There are more active and big companies, nor middle class families. It’s available to everyone. And SIMs on the planet than the computing capabilities of these de- there are humans. vices are different to those that have preceded it. One of the things holding back Driven on by the remorseless logic growth is that the tools that support of Moore’s law, the computer in your online business -- in payment, in iden- pocket knows where you are, can see tity, in fraud management -- have not through its camera and communicate really been able to keep pace. Stock code: BOKU Boku Inc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 5 STRATEGIC REPORT 6 Boku Inc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 www.boku.com STRATEGIC REPORT The World is Flat and Hedgehogs are Beating Foxes. n about 650 B.C., the Greek phi- We drink coffee in Starbucks, work in service that we consume? losopher and poet Archilochus Excel and Powerpoint and use iPhone It is because they are Foxes compet- I wrote about the Fox and the and Android phones. We communicate ing with Hedgehogs. using WhatsApp, foregoing the global Hedgehog. He said, “The fox knows Even when they operate in many SMS infrastructure. Netflix appears to many things; the hedgehog one big countries they do not do so as a glob- be beating the BBC and NBC. thing”. The business guru, Theodore al business. Their licences and spec- Levitt, took this analogy and applied These Hedgehog companies like Spo- trum are allocated by national gov- it to business: in his account, Foxes tify, Netflix and WhatsApp win when ernments, the competition law and are multinational companies oper- they compete with Mo- other regulations that ating in many countries around the bile Network Operators they must follow means world, adapting their offering to the (“MNO”), who, in theory “The fox knows that, in practice, global local market conditions and working should have a lot of nat- many things; telecoms groups oper- through a series of operating subsidi- ural advantages. MNOs ate a portfolio of na- aries, doing many things. The Hedge- hold a privileged place the hedgehog tional businesses.