(Alliance News) - RWS Holdings PLC on Tuesday said that it was holding out for a revenue boost in the second half, as it expects to see both profit and revenue fall when it posts interim results in June.

For the six months ended March 31, the Buckinghamshire, England-based technology-enabled language services provider expects to post reported revenue of GBP350 million, down 4% from GBP366.3 million a year prior.

Meanwhile, organic constant currency revenue is expected to have declined by 2%, an improvement on a decline of 7% the year before.

RWS Holdings noted that while certain market segments continue to see soft activity levels, it has been "encouraged" that two service divisions have returned to growth.

Adjusted pretax profit, however, is expected to be GBP45 million, down 17% from GBP54 million. The firm said this reflected, amongst other factors, a "weaker performance in some parts of our higher margin businesses".

Looking ahead, RWS Holdings said that it expects revenue to improve in the second half. However, delivery of full-year expectations remains dependent on the firm's business initiatives and artificial intelligence offerings.

"We are pleased to see that both Language Services and IP Services have returned to growth. Our growth initiatives, such as Linguistic Validation and eLearning, are also delivering incremental revenue and we have seen encouraging performance in Language Weaver, our long-established AI-centred machine translation solution," said Chief Executive Officer Ian El-Mokadem.

"It has been disappointing that we have not seen the recovery in Regulated Industries as quickly as we would have hoped and that sales in some parts of our content management software business have been slower than planned. We expect both to show some recovery in the second half."

The firm will publish its half-year results on June 12.

Shares in RWS Holdings were down 14% at 160.00 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.

By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter

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