Copter, I guess you were the gentleman standing at the back then?
We should probably have organised a HC mini-meetup beforehand.
I attended today's and last year's AGM and everyone was way more upbeat today. I guess last year they had only had the paywall for about 10 months and it was still to be seen whether the growth rate would fall through the floor once the initial "pent up" demand had subsided. This year everyone was much more at ease (I avoid the use of "relaxed" as they were certainly on the ball), proud, and very optimistic.
I've held NEA since 2010, watched them fall to 4c, and come back to where they are today and despite the constant talk of competitive threats I'd say after today's AGM that my confidence in Nearmap is the highest it's ever been.
On competitive threats Crowther has, in his words, a healthy paranoia. They're aware of the threats but are also mindful that there are many "levers" they can use to combat such threats, and also that it's not only about the technology. It takes years to get product & operations right as well. You can see this in the different corporate image Nearmap uses today. In the old days Nearmap was pitched as having the lowest cost aerial photography, enabling them to fly monthly. Although that's still a very significant feature of their operations they now talk about being a visual data platform.
Other significant points:
- they remain confident about hitting the $30-50m in revenue by Dec 2015 *solely within Australia*; IMO this is ambitious given that $30m requires them to exceed their FY14 growth rate, and $50m means ramping up significantly.
- they continue to provide guidance of $30-50m revenue for the US by Dec 2017
- they mentioned separate reporting for AU vs US (yay, I hate it when companies just lump distinct operating divisions into opaque pools).
- the HyperCam module approved for use in the US currently doesn't capture obliques, only ortho. They are working on adding oblique capture to HyperCamera, as well as FAA approval for HyperPod (they hope to have this in 1H2015); going forward both systems will be useful as they gain operational flexibility with HyperCam being useful at higher altitudes (less air traffic control issues)
Last but not least, I found it interesting that many of Nearmap staff were at the AGM today. The annual report included a photo of ~65 staff and I reckon 30 or 40 were in attendance today. If the reviews on Glassdoor from apparently disgruntled ex-employees were a widespread problem I doubt that they would have invited so many staff members to mingle with shareholders today.
