The Doctor Care Anywhere Group PLC (ASX: DOC) share price is lifting today after the company released its first quarterly update.
At the time of writing, the Doctor Care Anywhere share price is up 3.8%, trading at $1.07.
It's been a rollercoaster ride for investors since the United Kingdom-based company debuted on the ASX on 4 December. At a listing price of 80 cents per share, it was off to the races when its shares opened at around $1.00.
The Doctor Care Anywhere share price pushed as high as $1.52 by 11 January before grinding back lower to the $1.00 level.
Why is the Doctor Care Anywhere share price up today?
Doctor Care Anywhere delivered a well-rounded first-quarter update with unaudited underlying revenue increasing 16.5% to £4.4 million (A$6.87 million). The company reported a 14.7% increase in sign-ups to the platform to 500,000 and a 21.9% increase in consultations delivered to 90,500.
The positive news saw the Doctor Care Anywhere share price open 5% higher today at $1.085.
The company utilises its relationships with health insurers, healthcare providers and corporate customers to connect with patients and deliver a range of telehealth services.
The total number of people who have an entitlement to use its services, which the company refers to as 'eligible lives', increased to 2.37 million in the first quarter. This has been driven by expanding its membership bases of existing channel partners and new partner, Allianz.
Another key metric to highlight in the quarterly is its gross profit margins. A metric that has arguably come under heavy scrutiny for the likes of Redbubble Ltd (ASX: RBL) and Kogan.com Ltd (ASX: KGN). The company noted that underlying gross profit margins for the first quarter of FY21 were 43.2%, down 3.6 percentage points on the prior quarter.
This was driven by a combination of higher than expected demand for its services and increased demand for its GPs to deliver on the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout. On a positive note, the company expects this reduction to be temporary and for margins to normalise over time.
Management commentary
Commenting on the performance, CEO Bayju Thakar said:
The perennial demands on traditional health systems combined with government-imposed lockdowns, which are now easing in the UK, have fostered a level of adoption and acceptance of telehealth services in the past 12 months, by both patients and clinicians, that might previously have taken five years.
The speed of the UK vaccine rollout will allow our secondary care services, such as diagnostics, to open and this will further support our growth as hospital availability returns to normal.
Mr Thakar said the business continued to perform strongly, reflecting the long-term changes driving consumer demand for telehealth.
As we look beyond COVID lockdowns to a more widely vaccinated UK population, we are confident of year on year revenue growth of at least 100% above FY 2020, driven by growth in telehealth lives, activations and consultations together with our ability to grow areas of the business curtailed in the lockdowns.
