Iran war triggers slump in selfies, ME Group warns

Europe’s biggest photobooth operator has warned of a slump in selfies amid the fallout from the war in Iran.

London-listed ME Group, which operates the Photo.me network of over 30,000 booths as well as an events selfie business, has reported a revenue decline as much as 17 per cent in the month of April alone, as reduced travel and holiday bookings led to depressed demand for passport photos.

“The board believes this is largely attributable to a shift in consumer spending patterns driven by lower consumer confidence due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” the Surrey-based business said.

“While there has been an improvement in trading through May, the board does not expect trading patterns to normalise while conflict in the Middle East and the subsequent uncertainty in the macroeconomic landscape continue.”

ME Group has now cut its pre-tax profit expectations to £69-74m for the year to October, down from last year’s profit figure of £78.2m and below analyst expectations of £80m.

Analysts downgrade ME Group

Following the downgrade, analysts at Peel Hunt cut their target price for the stock from 275p to 230p.

“Although trends have improved recently, we assume that the weaker underlying performance continues in the short term,” the analysts said.

ME Group shares slid by more than a fifth to 115p in early trade on Monday morning. The FTSE 250 stock is down by around 21 per cent since the start of the year.

The company said its self-service laundry business, Wash.me, was not as severely impacted as its photobooth operations, with revenue up 3 per cent in April and up 17 per cent in the six months to April. ME Group said its plan to install an extra 1,300 laundry machines by the end of October “remains on track”.