Superloop founder, Bevan Slattery
Fibre connectivity provider, Superloop, has reported a net loss after tax of $2 million for the first half of the financial year 2017, seeing progress on the $3.5 million loss recorded for FY16.
Superloop owns and operates more than 540 km of fibre networks in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, connecting more than 70 of the region's major data centres.
The company also reported an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA), for the period, at a loss of $6.5 million.
Superloop reported revenue of $8.8 million for the first half of FY17, a 351 per cent increase compared to the prior corresponding period.
It said Australian operations contributed revenue from customers of $7 million for the half-year.
"Over the past six months we have established a platform to take advantage of the strong structural growth drivers across the region as we continue to pursue our vision to be a leading independent provider of digital services in the Asia-Pacific region," Superloop executive chairman and CEO, Bevan Slattery, said.
"Superloop has achieved major milestones in infrastructure development with the launch of the company's network in Hong Kong and expansion of its network in Singapore. We added significant coverage to our Australian network and successfully completed the transformative acquisition of BigAir Group, which we are busy integrating."
In September last year, Superloop entered into an agreement to acquire BigAir, in a transaction valued at up to $95 million.
Terms of the acquisition saw BigAir - which acquired Oriel Technologies in November 2014 - assist Superloop in its quest to become the region’s leading independent provider of connectivity services.
BigAir owns and operates one of Australia’s largest fixed wireless networks which today provides high speed broadband and data services to both the wholesale and enterprise markets.
“The acquisition of BigAir will allow us to leverage our fibre network plus provide us with new wireless capabilities to deliver low cost gigabit connectivity,” Slattery said, at the time.
In addition to a full suite of connectivity, cloud and managed services solutions, the acquisition brings more than 2200 customers, over 300 points of presence throughout Australia, additional data centres and additional installed fibre.
Superloop also said it delivered a "significant recurring revenue and a growing sales pipeline".
For the first half of FY17, BigAir Group contributed 2.2 million for the 10 days since 21 December 2016. The Singapore network also contributed revenue from customers of $1.1 million.
In the six-month period, Superloop installed more than 160 km of fibre, taking total installed fibre to 540 km. It also completed installation and testing of the first 110 km backbone fibre cable network for launch of the initial Hong Kong network in December 2016.
Additionally, the company connected 16 new enterprise buildings in Singapore, with 30 on-net at 31 December 2016, beating its initial target of 25 buildings.
Superloop also connected 18 new data centres across the region, with 70 on-net by the end of the reporting period.
According to Slattery, throughout the second half of F17 and beyond, additional sites will be added to Superloop’s network to meet customer demand.
Recently, the company also signed a $20 million agreement with Vocus for international, intercapital and regional ethernet access and metropolitan fibre capacity in Australia.
The deal enables Superloop to work with Vocus to upscale its metro, national and global capacity over a 15-year period. Superloop said it allows the business to realise greater cost synergies from the BigAir acquisition.
Additionally, it provides a platform of scalable services locally as part of the Superloop pan-Asian network.
Services are set to come online around July 2017, with synergies through migration of some services expected to be realised soon after.
According to Superloop, its efforts for the second half of the 2017 financial year will be centred around the integration of BigAir to realise cost and revenue synergies, in addition to expanding access networks to major commercial buildings in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
