BIG Big Technologies Plc

28 January 2025

Big Technologies plc

("Big Technologies" or the "Company" and the "Group")

Trading Update

Big Technologies plc, the UK-based remote people monitoring technology company, issues the following trading update ahead of the announcement scheduled for 2 April 2025 of its full year results for the year ended 31 December 2024.

The Group has continued to perform in line with the board's expectations with revenue for the year ended 31 December 2024 expected to be £50.3 million (2023: £55.2 million) and adjusted EBITDA to be £27.0 million (2023: £33.0 million). These results are in line with current market expectations and reflect the ongoing investment made in expanding our business development effort in the US market¹, which is starting to show positive results, in terms of new customer wins.

Outlook for 2025

The 2024 full year performance reflects the loss of revenue from a former customer in Colombia, from May 2024 onwards. As a result, and as previously described in the Group's H1 2024 financial results published in September 2024, revenue was lower in the second half of 2024, versus the first half of the year. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), which is the exit run rate of monthly recurring revenue in the last month of the reporting period was £4.0 million (H1 2024 £3.9 million). The MRR figure gives the Group visibility over its future revenues derived from its long-term contracts.

Visibility on the base-level of business for 2025 is very good and we expect to see growth in the MRR as we make progress throughout the year, assuming no adverse movements in foreign exchange. As a result, we expect Group sales and profitability for 2025 to be at a similar level to that achieved in 2024, which remains in line with current market expectations.

The Group is well-positioned, with the financial flexibility to invest in new technologies, and has a clear strategy for business development and investment in target markets, where it is currently under-represented. The electronic monitoring market remains supported by favourable tailwinds and with the Group's clear strategy and market-leading products, the Board is confident that the Group will return to growth in the near term.

^{1: The Company has compiled forecasts from five analysts with current market forecasts for 2024 revenue to be in the range of £50.0 to £50.2m, with a consensus of £50.1m, and for adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of £26.0 to £27.1m, with a consensus of £26.7m.}

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About Big Technologies

Big Technologies is the parent company of Buddi, which was founded in 2005 by its current CEO, Sara Murray, following an initial idea to create a GPS device small enough for a child to carry. Today, Big Technologies is a proven supplier of innovative and high-quality products and services to the remote personal monitoring industry. Big Technologies provides products and services under a number of brand and trading names, with 'Buddi' being the most well-known and being used in respect of activities within the core criminal justice market. Big Technologies (under the buddi brand) has created a leading, integrated technology platform (including both hardware and software solutions) for remote monitoring of individuals, providing state-of-the-art Electronic Monitoring (EM) solutions on a SaaS-like, subscription basis.

Electronic Monitoring in the criminal justice sector involves utilising location technologies to remotely monitor and manage people at all stages of the criminal justice system. The Company's focus on the Criminal Justice market in the immediate term has been demand-driven, with significant opportunities created by a combination of favourable market tailwinds as electronic location devices are increasingly recognised as alternatives to imprisonment, and superior technological capability enabling the Company to meet this demand effectively.

Big Technologies' criminal justice solution has been iteratively developed over a 10-year period, utilising the knowledge of an experienced management team listening to customers.  The solution consists of a proprietary software platform with modular monitoring hardware, capable of being adapted to multiple applications. The Company's criminal justice solution is principally focussed around the "Buddi Smart Tag", an electronic monitoring hardware device, and "Buddi Eagle", the in-house developed, cloud-based monitoring software. Collectively, the hardware and the intelligent tools integrated into Big Technologies' software enable real-time tracking of monitored individuals with high levels of accuracy and reliability. Buddi evidences a substantial reduction in false alerts when compared to competitor systems which, combined with the reduction in subsequent investigations, can result in substantial cost savings for customers.

In addition to the high levels of accuracy, the Buddi Smart Tag has several key advantages over its competitors' devices. The tag is lighter, smaller, has longer battery life and offers a simple, contact free and shorter installation process, providing substantial staff cost savings for customers. This superior product design, coupled with the intelligent monitoring software, typically comes at a small price premium to competitor devices. However, the overall effectiveness and reliability of the solution, combined with the substantial cost savings delivered as a result of reduced monitoring costs, have helped Big Technologies deliver strong revenue growth from both existing and new customers. The Company leases its devices and software solutions to customers typically based on daily or monthly rates.