229% growth in Q4 for Spice i2i

Asian mobile internet and VAS company Spice i2i reported a turnover of USD 97.4 million for the fourth quarter ended 31 December 2010, up 229 percent from USD 29.6 million in the year-ago period. The increase is attributed to the mobility business of the group. The mobility business contributed USD 74.7 Million to the turnover in this quarter. Inline with increases in revenue, direct service fees incurred and costs of goods sold had also increased by USD 62.9 million to USD 80.6 million in Q4. These increases were not in proportion to the increases in revenue, due to change in sales mix (revenue generated from the mobile handsets business has comparatively higher cost of goods sold and lower margin as compared to the voice business). Similarly, personnel costs, infrastructure costs, depreciation of property, plant and equipment, amortisation of intangible assets and finance costs had increased in comparison to last year's same period, resulting from the acquisition of the subsidiaries, Spice BPO Services, Bharat IT Services, and Newtel and incorporation of subsidiary Spice-CSL. Profit, dropped 57 percent to USD 1.8 million versus USD 4.1 million a year earlier. Spice i2i also announced it aims to raise SGD 151 million in a rights issue. Part of the rights proceeds are intended to be used for the proposed acquisition of the remaining 35 percent of the shares in the issued share capital of the Spice-CSL joint venture to make Spice-CSL a 100 percent owned subsidiary. The company also plans to acquire other companies comprised in the CSL Group that are involved in the ecosystem related to mobile handsets and mobile internet like VAS, retail, after sales services etc. The rights issue is underwritten in full by DBS Bank