Shares in Netcall plc (LON:NET) surged in late-morning trading Tuesday after a near 100% rise in its cloud services and product bookings helped boost its first-half profits by nearly 50%.
The customer engagement software firm reported a pre-tax profit for the six months ended 31 December of £420,000, up 49% on the prior year, with revenues up 6% at £11.4mln.
READ: Netcall sees revenues weighted towards the second half, shares drop
Cloud services and product bookings, meanwhile, jumped 96% to £5.2mln.
Total annual contract value (ACV) also rose 10% to £15.1mln, with ACV for the group’s low-code platform acquired in August rising 48%.
Looking forward, Netcall said it was approaching “a clear inflexion point” as its cloud service bookings had exceeded product sales for the first time.
The group added that it had traded in line with expectations to date, with revenues expected to be weighted more toward the second half as “strong sales momentum” continued and order inflows came in “significantly ahead” of the year-ago period.
Henrik Bang, Netcalls chief executive, said that the increase in the firm’s total ACV and Low-code ACV provided “a clear demonstration of the growing forward visibility of our revenue streams”.
In a note to clients, analysts at the company’s broker finnCap said the interims had demonstrated “an increase in quality and growth”.
Analysts added that the company’s cloud services platforms provided “an unusual opportunity for de-risked growth” and that the increase in low-code bookings, which were up seven-fold at £3.9mln in the six months, highlighted “the opportunity in continuing conversion of the strong pipeline”.
Shares were up 13.6% at 34.3p.