Company Announcements

13 July 2022

Vianet Group plc

("Vianet" or the "Group")

AGM Statement

Vianet Group plc (AIM: VNET), the international provider of actionable data and business insight through devices connected to its Internet of Things platform ("IOT"), will be holding its Annual General Meeting ("AGM") today at 11.00 a.m. at the offices of Vianet Group plc, One Surtees Way, Surtees Business Park, Stockton on Tees, TS18 3HR.

James Dickson, Chairman, will provide the following trading update at today's meeting:

"I am pleased to report that the good revenue momentum experienced by the Group at the back end of last year has continued into the new financial year with recurring revenues remaining strong at c. 85%, with accompanying gross margins being maintained across the whole business.  

"Specifically in Smart Machines, primarily as a result of our commercial focus on exciting opportunities for our telemetry, SmartVend software and award-winning contactless payment solutions, we are seeing excellent customer engagement and encouraging recurring income growth in this division.

"In addition, revenue in our Smart Zones division is materially ahead year on year and tracking towards pre-pandemic levels. This has been aided by last year's successful launch of our new insights and reporting portal, which is proving extremely popular with hospitality industry customers, particularly at a time when the economic backdrop is challenging for everyone.

"Whilst global semi-conductor supply shortages are resulting in higher hardware costs, we are actively seeking to recoup these additional costs wherever customer terms allow. However, our overriding commercial imperative is to keep the sales pipeline flowing to expand the Group's installation footprint and grow top line sales. Whilst component supply chain pressures and fuel price inflation will impact on hardware installation margins into next year, we are excited by our sales pipeline and the opportunity to significantly grow our high-quality recurring income streams.

"The Group has, I believe, really benefitted from the sales and technology investments we have made and the decisions we took to re-invigorate the business throughout the pandemic. The Company remains well positioned to deliver strong recurring earnings growth, execute on our long-term strategic plan and to expand on the future strategic options for Vianet. As such, I am looking to the future with increased optimism and confidence."

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About Vianet

Vianet Group is a leading provider of actionable management information and business insight created through combining data from our smart Internet of Things ('IOT') solutions and external information sources.

Since Admission to AIM in 2006, the Group has grown from its core beer monitoring business both organically and through strategic acquisitions to widen its offering and develop new businesses, especially in vending telemetry and contactless payment solutions particularly for the premium coffee sector.

Servicing over 300 customers across the world and rendering live data to our IOT platform from over 250,000 connected machines daily, Vianet is one of the largest business to business (b2b) connected solutions providers in Europe with established long-term relationships with blue chip customers and growing recurring revenues which are over 85% of our total revenues.

In our Smart Machines division, we connect a single data gathering device with its own on-board communication capability to a customer's asset or system. The device then sends data back via our IOT platform to cloud based servers. The technology was originally developed for automated retailing machines; however, the flexibility and functionality of the device means the technology can be applied to any machine which has the capability to output data. The device is also used to connect our contactless payment solution and communicate payment terms to our cloud-based payment services providers where that application is also required.

The Smart Zones division is where we connect multiple data gathering devices into one or more systems or assets with the data from those devices being communicated back to our IOT platform and cloud-based servers via a single 3G communications hub. The technology was originally developed for flow monitoring devices, temperature sensors, and asset management in drinks retailing but any data gathering device with a digital output could be connected to the communications hub where required such as gaming machines, utilities management and EPOS.

For further information, please visit www.vianetplc.com