Points' Strong 2017 Highlighted by Expanded Loyalty Partners

Loyalty commerce solutions provider Points is looking forward to more growth in 2018 after reporting an encouraging fourth quarter and annual financial results Thursday.

For the full year, which ended December 31, 2017, revenue increased 8 percent on a year-over-year basis to $347.6 million from $321.8 million in 2016.

Meanwhile, gross profit also climbed 8 percent from 2016 to $47 million and adjusted EBITDA (Earnings before income tax expense, depreciation, and amortization, foreign exchange, share-based compensation and impairment of long-term investments) reached a record $13.2 million, an increase of 9 percent over 2016.

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"Our strong fourth quarter and full-year results demonstrate that the strategy we embarked upon a couple years ago—to invest in diversifying into new growth areas while continuing to expand our core business—is working," said CEO Rob MacLean in a statement. "In 2017 we generated record total revenue, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA, with our newer Platform Partners and Points Travel segments delivering a growing contribution to gross profit, and our Loyalty Currency Retailing segment providing profitable growth."

"We believe this positive momentum will extend into 2018 and anticipate increased growth rates for both gross profit and adjusted EBITDA this year as we continue to execute on our strategy."

Points' Loyalty Currency Retailing segment added half-dozen new loyalty program partners in 2017, while its Platform Partnerships business launched five new programs over the course of the year. Points Travel launched a pair of new programs in 2017, with an additional four loyalty program partner announcements expected to launch in the first half of 2018.

"We added notable international carriers All Nippon Airways and Etihad Airways to our Points Travel roster in 2017. Along with pending deployments we've recently discussed with Air Europa and Club Carlson, last week we were pleased to launch with Amtrak as our newest Points Travel partner," Points President Christopher Barnard said on Thursday's investor conference call. "Next in the launch queue for the spring, another notable Asian flag carrier will be launching with our Points Travel service and continue to build our presence in the important Asia Pacific region."

READ MORE: Tech of the Week: Points Continues To Enrich Loyalty Programs

Looking ahead to the rest of 2018, Points executives remain bullish despite Chief Financial Officer Michael D’Amico's impending retirement. Vice President of Finance, Erick Georgiou, will take over as CFO effective April 2, 2018.

"We launched a lot in the back part of 2017 and have a lot in the pipeline. Groupon has just been in the market for a couple of months now, launching at the end of last year. Speaking of Groupon in particular, we're quite satisfied with the way they've deployed our solutions," added Barnard. "We're satisfied with what we closed on the back part of last year and there's a full pipeline across a bunch of different industries that we're working on to launch this year."

For the year ending December 31, 2018, the company expects gross profit to increase between 10 and 20 percent over 2017 and adjusted EBITDA to rise between 20 and 40 percent over last year.