Blinkx shares rocket as election and Olympics drive ad growth
VIDEO search engine Blinkx saw shares rise by 25 per cent yesterday as the company said the Olympics and US elections had driven more people to its website.
The search engine, which trawls content from video sites including YouTube, said it expects profits of around $2.4m (£1.5m) for the six months ending 30 September. City experts had forecasted a loss.
Blinkx said turnover would be around $80m, also above expectations. The company, which was founded in 2004 before the likes of YouTube entered the market, saw shares hit a six-month high.
The Aim-listed company also said that acquisitions of US advertising firms Burst Media and Prime Visibility Media Group (PVMG) had been integrated ahead of schedule.
Chief executive S. Brian Mukherjee said: “This has been an exceptional first half for Blinkx. The business has shown strong growth, driven by its underlying fundamentals in combination with the ahead of-schedule integration of Burst and PVMG into the Blinkx engine and increased advertising spend allocated to special events – specifically the summer Olympics and the US presidential elections.”
Citi Research analyst Thomas Singlehurst said the update “gives comfort in the drivers of growth for online video advertising and therefore the market as a whole”.