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Avast revenues and profits grow faster in third quarter

Published: 08:14 21 Oct 2020 BST

Avast PLC -

Avast PLC (LON:AVST), the cybersecurity specialist, said it continued to generate strong cash flow and voluntarily paid down debt even though customer trends returned to normal with the easing of coronavirus lockdowns around the world.

The Prague-headquartered company, which was promoted to the FTSE 100 in the summer, kept full-year guidance intact as it reported adjusted revenue of US$226mln for the third quarter, up 2.6% year-on-year, compared to 1.5% growth in the first half of the year.

Underlying profits (EBITDA) increased by 3.3% to US$126mln, picking up from the 2.1% growth in the first half.

With user and customer trends going back to normal with the easing of lockdowns, adjusted revenue percentage growth overtook adjusted billings percentage growth in the third quarter of the year.

Avast said its consumer desktop business, offering free and premium antirust software, VPN and disk clean-up services, performed well and in-line with pre-pandemic levels in the quarter.

In a trading update, Avast chief executive Ondrej Vlcek said: “As cyber-attackers have intensified their efforts through the pandemic to exploit digital vulnerabilities, Avast has been on the front line in protecting people's personal information and privacy."

After paying back US$100mln of debt in the quarter, net debt at the end of September 2020 stood at 1.5 times EBITDA.

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