Nordic managed cybersecurity services firm Nixu has lowered its guidance for annual revenue growth for 2019. “This is due to the stronger weakening of estimated revenue growth of Nixu’s business operations,” it said.
The Helsinki Nasdaq firm said the main causes for the lower growth were a “slowdown of a significant cybersecurity partnership”, a “delay of multiple substantial digital identity assignments” and the “delay of estimated technology resell deals”.
It added: “Simultaneously as economic uncertainty grows, the number of recruitments has been lower than planned. Especially in markets outside Finland, customer uncertainty due to the general economic situation can be seen when starting new projects.”
The decrease in revenue will have an impact on EBITDA, which will be “negative” in H2/2019, said the firm.
However, supported by strong organic growth and completed acquisitions, Nixu estimates its revenue will still grow around 25% from the previous financial year. And the full year EBITDA is estimated to “improve significantly from the previous financial year”.
Nixu CEO Petri Kairinen said: “I’m sorry that our forecasted business growth pace weakens so rapidly during the second half of 2019. Typically, in our business, some business areas, in turn, exceed their forecasts, while others may fall short.”
He added: “We have experienced a situation where we have fallen behind our forecast across the board. The fast decline surprised us in a way that is not acceptable. We will look at our forecast system and increase the number of underlying indicators significantly.”
The company recently acquired Danish firm Ezenta and the cyber threat intelligence unit of Swedish provider Vesper Group.
