SLI Systems Poised for Continued Growth in Rapidly Expanding E-Commerce Industry

At Annual Shareholder Meeting internet services innovator details strong global market potential

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – 16 October 2014 – SLI Systems (SLI.NZ) today said it expects to build upon its strong record of sequential growth by extending its leadership in the e-commerce market, growing revenue from existing customers, and continuing to take advantage of looming opportunities worldwide.

Reporting at its Annual Shareholder Meeting in Christchurch, SLI Chairman Greg Cross said: “The company is pleased with the progress made during the 2014 financial year, our first full year as a publicly-listed company. We spent less capital than planned from our May 2013 Initial Public Offering (IPO), and grew our high-margin revenue by accelerating e-commerce in fast growing business segments.

“Total revenue for the year ending 30 June 2014 was $22.1 million, losses before tax were $5.9 million and cash on hand was $11.4 million. We saw a high margin of 75% on our revenues and a customer retention rate of 90%, all of which was in line with or better than forecasted.

“Group Annualised Recurring Revenue (ARR) – an estimate of our expected forward revenue and a key benchmark for the business – rose 29.4% to $24.9 million from the $19.3 million we achieved for the period ended 30 June 2013. This figure represented 96.3% of our forecast, with the shortfall reflecting delays in building up our sales and marketing teams.”

“More than 500 e-commerce businesses are using SLI’s solutions, which can service more than a billion queries in a single month,” said SLI CEO Shaun Ryan. “That’s ten percent of the volume that Google reportedly serves in North America in the same time frame. And with continued growth, we expect to continue adding scale to our high-margin business.”

Worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1% this year to reach $1.5 trillion, according to eMarketer, with a compound annual growth rate of 17.4% between 2012 and 2017. Additionally, RJ Metrics projects that 110,000 English-language e-commerce sites do business today. Ryan noted, “We believe that only a small portion of these sites have sophisticated site search capabilities in place today.”

He continued, “We are particularly interested in continuing to grow business in the U.S., a $40 billion e-commerce market according to eMarketer. To take advantage of this, we are building out our sales and marketing organization in the country as shown by the appointment of our CMO Tim Callan and the introduction of industry luminary Andy Lark to our board of directors.”

Following its history of innovation, the company introduced two new SaaS products to increase “share of wallet” with its existing customer base, and to further entice prospective customers to select SLI. The company’s offerings are winning accolades around the world, including this month when SLI was crowned “Best Product” at the eCommerce Awards for Excellence 2014 in London.

To attract more international business, SLI site search offerings are now available in 15 of the most popular languages. And to support growing business opportunities, the company has increased its staff from 102 to 162 since the start of 2013 in its Christchurch, Melbourne, London, and San Jose offices.

Ryan added, “SLI has a track record of innovation and new product development as we mine our rapidly growing body of ‘user behavior’ data. We enjoy a large number of customers who are enthusiastic advocates of our products as they recognize that SLI boosts their customer conversions. Many of these are willing to test our innovations on their sites, which has resulted in stronger sales and an expanded product range delivered through our unique service model.

“Our focus in the coming year is to ensure that the significant investments we have made in the business continue to deliver performance enhancements. We remain confident we will continue to execute on our opportunities and look ahead to the remainder of the year with optimism,” Ryan concluded.

Connect with SLI:
Twitter – twitter.com/slisystems
Facebook – facebook.com/slisystems
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/sli-systems

About SLI Systems
SLI Systems (SLI.NZ) enables the world’s leading e-commerce retailers to accelerate sales by connecting shoppers with the products they’re most likely to buy. With offerings that include site search, navigation, merchandising, mobile, product recommendations and user-generated SEO, SLI is the most chosen cloud-based site search provider to Internet Retailer Top 1,000 retailers. The company’s patented technology continuously learns from the actions of visitors to deliver the most relevant results possible. Whether via PC, tablet or phone, a site powered by SLI delivers the kind of satisfying search experience that increases conversion rates, secures brand loyalty and results in higher order values. SLI operates on five continents. For more information, visit sli-systems.com.

¹ Annualised Recurring Revenue, a non-GAAP financial performance measure used internally by SLI that represents the annualised monthly recurring revenue from SLI’s customers for its Learning Search and related products and its Site Champion product on an assumed constant currency basis using the exchange rates set out in the prospectus for SLI’s May 2013 Initial Public Offer. ARR does not include revenue from SLI’s Related Search product, which it does not actively promote.