Phorm soars after Chinese debut

3rd Oct 2013 10:30

In its first week of Chinese operations, internet monitoring company Phorm said it had averaged 4.3m users per day. Shares in the AIM-listed company, which was threatened with court action in the UK over its controversial Deep Packet Inspection internet browsing interception technology, soared on Thursday as it announced operations in China had begun successfully.Phorm said a nationwide opt-in process had begun in China, where an average of 4.3m users per day considerably dwarfs the 3.6m opted-in users per month or even daily active users of 1.2m the company had announced for the rest of its business in a recent trading statement. After recently moving its registered head office from Delaware in the US to Singapore to focus on opportunities in Asia, Phorm added that the commercialisation process had begun in China."The company is now in the process of commercialising its operations and is currently negotiating with both advertisers and publishers," it said. "It is expected that over the coming months the company will start its test campaigns before moving to commercial operations."Phorm raised £7.2m in April at 4p per share equity plus loan notes, having raised £20m and £6m at 60p in 2012 to ramp-up operations in China and Turkey.The company lost $24.m before tax in recent interim results to end-June, having lost $58m in 2012 and $62m the year before.Shares in Phorm were up 62% to 5.25p at 11:00 on Thursday.OH