Immotion flags good first-half performance

Virtual reality (VR)-focussed entertainment group Immotion said in a trading update on Thursday that unaudited revenue at its core location-based entertainment business “almost doubled” in its first half to £4.4m, from £2.3m a year ago.

The AIM-traded firm said that the location-based entertainment business was currently enjoying “very strong” trading in the key summer period, with unaudited July revenue of £1.3m being its best-ever month.

That took unaudited revenue for the division for the seven months ended 31 July to £5.7m - a 78% increase from £3.2m in the equivalent period last year, with August also starting “very strongly”.

Immotion said it recently completed two small-scale installations at Chester Zoo and Legoland Discovery Center Philadelphia, meaning it now had 488 seats across 54 locations.

The group said it had visibility on a pipeline of new sites and additional seats at certain existing sites.

Should all of those developments materialise, the directors said they expected the group to pass the 500-seat mark by the end of the second half.

As it announced on 26 April, the board had made the strategic decision to spin out both the home-based entertainment and the ‘Uvisan’ divisions of the group, saying that discussions on both businesses were at an advanced stage, and further updates to be provided as appropriate.

“The first six months of the year have shown solid year-on-year improvement and, with July exceeding all previous revenue numbers, the summer trading period is looking very encouraging,” said chief executive officer Martin Higginson.

“Demand for the group's core location-based entertainment offering remains strong and, with solid operating cash flow generation from the key summer months, we are now well positioned for further installations and growth of the estate.”

Immotion said it would release its unaudited first-half results during the week of 26 September.

At 1340 BST, shares in Immotion Group were up 6.74% at 3.47p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.