LONDON (ShareCast) - Keywords Studios, which provides services to the video games industry, saw decent top-line growth in 2013, but reported a decline in profits in its maiden annual results as a listed company.

The company, which floated on AIM in July 2013, reported an adjusted profit before tax of €2.5m for last year, down from €2.9m in 2012.

Including expenses related to its initial public offering, share option charges and currency movements, the statutory profit before tax more than halved to €1.2m, from €2.7m.

Keywords provides integrated localisation, testing and audio services across 40 languages and 12 games platforms.

Revenues rose 14.3% to €16.4m over the year despite a “turbulent period” for the industry due to an unexpected scaling back in the number of next generation launch territories and delays to some earlier generation games releases.

The group declared a final dividend of 0.67p per share, which, with the interim dividend of 0.33p per share, makes a total payout of 1p per share.

Chief Executive Andrew Day said: "Despite the uncertainty in the industry as it transitions to the new generation of consoles, we delivered strong revenue growth and we have considerably strengthened our market position, geographical spread and service offering through a combination of market share gains, organic investment and recent acquisitions.”

The games industry is estimated to see “healthy activity” in 2014 and Keywords expected to make “good progress” as it supports new generation hardware and the significant growth being seen in smartphone gaming, Day said. He said that the company has made a “solid start” to the new year.

BC

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