Blinkx gross profit doubles to $4.5m

LONDON - Video search engine Blinkx has reported a gross profit of $4.5m (拢2.85m) for the first six months of the current financial year, on the back of strong revenue growth, which beat analysts' expectations.

Blinkx's gross profit increased by 106% from the $2.2m reported for the first half of the previous financial year, which consisted of 23 weeks of trading instead of 26 weeks.

Revenues at the company soared 115% to $6.4m during the six months to 30 September 2008, up from $3m the year before. The company said that it had seen substantial advertising revenues through the Blinkx AdHoc platform, as well as signing up partners including ITN, MSN UK and Getty Images.

However, recorded a net loss of $3.3m for the period.

Suranga Chandratillake, founder and chief executive of Blinkx, said: "We are pleased to report a very strong performance this period, with both revenue and bottom line ahead of analyst consensus.

"We have taken a conservative view of the macro situation and balanced that against the strong growth of the online video market. We therefore believe that in spite of the current macro-economic conditions, we expect Blinkx to be able to report continued strong growth in the second half and beyond."

The video search engine achieved a 681% growth in traffic between June 2007 and July 2008 in the UK alone, according to Nielsen Online.