Software company Cerillion PLC (LON:CER) lifted its interim dividend and said it remained cautiously optimistic as its order book reached record levels.
The billing, charging and customer relationship management software group generated revenues up 46% of £10.2mln in the six months to 31 March, boosted by the start of five new contracts. Annualised recurring revenue increased 20% to £6.1mln.
The back order book has swelled 57% since this point last year to a record £24.2mln, consisting of £19.4m of sales contracted but not likely to be recognised until the coming 12-24 months, plus £4.8m of annualised support and maintenance revenue.
With net cash up 86% to £4.8mln the interim dividend was lifted 9% to 1.75p.
Chief executive Louis Hall said, “with the company continuing to demonstrate very encouraging business momentum, and we are confident that our performance targets for the full year are well within reach, based on the volume of work in train and our back order book”.
Looking further forward, he added, “the new business pipeline is strong and sales processes have continued to be active through the current crisis to date, putting the company in a good position for further progress”.
Having not seen any significant slowdown in trading activity, the company put this down to the nature of the group's customers being predominantly telecoms businesses providing critical infrastructure and services, with data traffic levels having also increased markedly as a result of national lockdowns across the globe.
There were said to be potential major new orders at varying stages of negotiation.
Cerillion shares were up 5% to 283.5p on Monday morning, taking their gains above 19% for the year to date.