Forbidden Technologies PLC (LON:FBT) is gearing up for a big sales drive over the next two years after completing a heavy cost cutting programme.
“2015 represented a year of stabilisation, reorganisation and regeneration. Our intention is to make 2016 the year we begin to see sales traction,” said Aziz Musa, chief executive.
The video editing specialist reduced operating and capitalised costs by a third in 2015, to £4.5mln, lowering the overall loss for the year to £2.63mln (£3.64mln).
Revenues were modest still at £709,000 (689,000), but there was an uptick in the second half.
Since the year end, leading sports management group IMG has also renewed a contract for edited sports highlights across twelve channels using Forbidden’s Forscene platform.
Forscene represents the vast majority of growth opportunities in 2016 and 2017, said Forbidden, primarily in broadcast post-production and news and sports content.
The sales team has been beefed up to support the sales drive, with a £600,000 reduction in R&D spend to pay for the extra staff.
Longer term, consumer editing platform Captevate, for social media users, is expected to chip in meaningful revenues from 2017 while eva, the group’s new video social media platform, has won its first paid client.
Musa said Frobidden is going through a cultural change, shifting from a product first mentality to a revenue based mentality.”
“Money is to be spent on commercialising the business not further product development. We are focusing our efforts in certain areas such as sports, with a significant revenue increase in that sector.”
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