MYOB nudges half-a-million online subscribers

MYOB's online subscriber base has shot up to nearly half a million thanks to its growing SME and enterprise segments.

The Australian accounting software vendor's online subscriber count grew by 61 percent to reach 492,000 for the six months ended 30 June 2018. The company said it was on track to reach its goal of 1 million subscribers by 2020.

"The first six months of 2018 has seen exceptional growth in our online subscriber base, reaching almost 500,000 online subscribers," chief executive Tim Reed said.

"This growth demonstrates that SMEs and accountants have embraced our connected practice vision for the industry and recognise the role we play to help their businesses succeed."

MYOB also reported its results for the first half of the 2018 financial year, with revenue up 7 percent to $218.5 million. Underlying EBITDA was up 3 percent to $92.7 million, while net profit was down 10 percent to $25.3 million.

MYOB's preferred measure for profit is net profit after tax and after adding back the tax effected amortisation expense related to acquired intangibles due to "the large amount of non-cash amortisation of acquired intangible that is reflected in NPAT", this figure was down 6 percent to $45.6 million.

The company thanked its growth on recurring revenue from its SME business which was up 7 percent to $135.6 million. MYOB's two "expansion" segments, enterprise solutions and payments, also had a strong showing, with revenue up 10 percent and 75 percent respectively and accounting for 17 percent of total revenue at $37.7 million.

Reed said the company had focused on its compliance, tax and advisory products, including the launch of MYOB Advisor, which interprets financial information and generates a written report with natural language using AI.

It wasn't all cheery for MYOB in the first half of the year though. The company suffered a setback when it was forced to terminate its proposed $180 million acquisition of the accounting software business from Reckon in May after getting caught up in regulatory approval.

In response, MYOB said it would instead invest $50 million in R&D over the next two years, and another $30 million on sales and marketing initiatives.

MYOB's shares were down 6 percent from the start of trading to the time of writing, selling for $2.93 each.