musicMagpie reveals financial results after first year as a listed company

Stockport-headquartered global re-commerce business, musicMagpie, has met management expectations in year-end trading update, the firm’s first as an AIM-listed company.

The business announced revenues of £145.2 million to the year ending 30^th November 2021. Results have been bolstered by the strong initial performance of its smartphone rental subscription service and the roll-out of SMARTDrop Kiosks, which both launched in autumn last year.

musicMagpie’s core consumer technology business saw its revenue increase 5.4% in the UK, with the year’s performance rounded-off by a record Black Friday driven by increased consumer awareness of the retailer as a sustainable way to buy and sell smartphones, tablets and other tech products.  Revenue from disc media and books also returned to pre-pandemic levels during the second half of the year.

Launched in October 2020, musicMagpie’s smartphone rental subscription service has over the course of 2021 grown to 13,500 active subscribers, including the first cohort of contract renewals.  The rental model has contributed to improvement of the firm’s margins and allows for an individual smartphone to earn higher recurring revenues for the business over time when compared to a one-off sale.

SMARTDrop kiosks, which were first trialled in November 2020, have also now allowed customers to trade-in over 5,300 smartphones and paid out over £1.5 million.  So far, the automated drop-off points are expected to have been installed in nearly 300 Asda stores in 2022 as part of a recently agreed sustainability partnership with the supermarket chain.

Steve Oliver (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of musicMagpie, commented on the group’s performance:

“We are pleased to have delivered a good performance in our first year as a listed company, in line with our expectations at the time of the IPO in April. The strong progress being made by our SMARTDrop Kiosks and our corporate recycling programme is enabling our strategic priority to ‘buy more, sell more, rent more’, and we are also especially pleased by the consumer reaction to our phone rental subscription offer which is gaining good momentum. As a result, we are confident in our prospects for the new financial year.”