The improbable combination of swimsuit photos and interactive gambling for mobile phones is delivering huge jumps in income for Summus.
The Raleigh-based developer of applications for use on wireless devices reported a 263 jump in wireless application revenue to $1.2 million for the second quarter compared to 2003. Revenues jumped 53 percent from the first quarter of this year.
Driving the demand for Summus offerings were Sports Illustrated Swimsuit wallpapers and screensavers plus a mobile phone poker game, Phil Hellmuth’s Texas Hold’em.
Summus reported more than 700,000 downloads of swimsuit images since it began offering them in March. The company did not report specific numbers on the poker game but did say it had 300 percent per month growth for the $2.99 subscription service.
Summus CEO Gary Ban reported that 13 national and international carriers now offer the swimsuit content, up from two when the service launched.
“Given our success with this product, we are looking forward to even greater revenue contributions as we expect to launch an upgraded Swimsuit product portfolio in 2005,” Ban said in a statement.
Summus (OTCBB: SUMU) stock closed at 18 cents on Thursday. Its 52-week high is 52 cents, the low 7 cents.
The company still lost money. It reported losing $708,963 for the second quarter, down from $1.1 million a year ago. For the first six months of 2004, Summus lost $1.9 million compared to $2.8 million last year.
In a statement, Summus said it “believes it can finance operations until it is cash flow positive.” Summus said it has $1.67 million in cash and access to another $1 million in additional escrowed funds.
Summus: www.summus.com
