Stockport-based musicMagpie — which allows consumers to buy, rent and sell refurbished consumer technology — said on Wednesday its financial performance for the year is in line with management’s expectations, with revenue of £145.2 million and adjusted EBITDA of £12.2 million.

The Stockport firm, which joined the stock market in April, said its smart phone rental subscription service has made “strong progress.”

In a trading update for the full year ended November 30, 2021, musicMagpie said: “Revenue in the group’s core consumer technology business in the UK was up 5.4% on the year.

“This culminated in a record Black Friday as consumers increasingly recognise musicMagpie as the smart, sustainable and trusted way to buy, rent and sell products such as smartphones, tablets, consoles and wearables.

“As set out in our interim results in July, revenues from the disc media (35% of total group revenue) and books (6% of total group revenue) divisions reverted to pre-pandemic levels in the second half of the year.

“The smart phone rental subscription service, which provides customers with a more affordable and flexible option than an outright purchase or a pay-monthly contract with a mobile network, has made strong progress since its launch in October 2020.

“Its growing popularity with consumers means that, as at 30 November 2021, the service now has c.13,500 active paying subscribers, including our first cohort of subscription renewals.

“This has already made a positive contribution to group margins in FY21 and, as noted in our half-year results, creates the potential to earn higher recurring revenues and EBITDA over the life of a device as opposed to a one-off sale.

“The SMARTDrop kiosk offering, which launched in November 2020, is being successfully rolled out across the Asda network and will be in nearly 300 stores in 2022.

“So far, approximately 5,300 smartphones have been traded in through the kiosks, paying out over £1.5m to customers.

“The kiosks also form a key component of the wider sustainability partnership that the group has recently launched with Asda, as announced in September 2021.”

musicMagpie CEO Steve Oliver said: “We are pleased to have delivered a good performance in our first year as a listed company, in line with our expectations at the time of the IPO in April.

“The strong progress being made by our SMARTDrop Kiosks and our corporate recycling programme is enabling our strategic priority to ‘buy more, sell more, rent more’, and we are also especially pleased by the consumer reaction to our phone rental subscription offer which is gaining good momentum.

“As a result, we are confident in our prospects for the new financial year.”