LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Shares in BrainJuicer fell more than 1% despite it posting a 38% hike in full-year pre-tax profit to £6.2m, helped by a 24% surge in revenue to £31.24m.
Nevertheless, while reporting generally chipper geographic updates, the company also said gross profit fell 7% in the UK, its second largest market, for client-specific reasons.

"Our double-digit growth is testament to the strength of our pioneering System 1 research methods and the hard work of a fantastic team," enthused founder and CEO John Kearon.

The international marketing and research agency said it was looking forward to further growth in its core-four research products in the year to come.

At year's end it had £7.75m cash and no debt, and during the 12-month period it returned a total of £5.25m to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks.

In terms of geography, gross profit in the US business grew 40%, and that after several years of double-digit growth.

"The US is now our largest market by a significant margin, making up 42% of our total gross profit in 2016," the company said in a statement.

In Continental Europe, BrainJuicer grew gross profit by 64%, rebounding strongly after a decline in 2015.

Its Brazil business grew gross profit by 12%. This was a relatively small part of BrainJuicer's business but nevertheless an important one, working closely with the company's US Miami office in serving clients across the LATAM region.

"In the UK, our second largest market, gross profit declined by 7% due to sharp declines in two large clients for specific reasons associated with those two clients," the company said.

"In one of these, for example, a large multi-year programme of work had come to a natural end."

The UK business supported BrainJuicer's smaller offices, and in 2016, provided the resources for our entry into the Australian market where it had made an encouraging start.

Gross profit in the outfit's Singapore and China region grew 16%.

"We have shut down our small Indian operation due to lack of scale, the small project sizes inherent in that market, and the bigger opportunities identified in our other markets."

At about 13:31 GMT, shares in AIM-listed BrainJuicer were down 1.37% to 720p each.

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