LoopUp PLC (LON:LOOP) shares rallied as it revealed strong growth in its new cloud telephony business, with its pipeline of potential new business now worth £106mln.
The online conferencing specialist only started the cloud business in July, but said it notched up revenues of £2.7mln in the year to end-December out of total sales of £50.2mln, an 18% improvement on 2019.
The large-company focused platform business saw revenues rise by 25% by £43mln, which helped to offset a sharp drop in the increasingly competitive non-professional business.
Underlying profits {EBIDTA) over the year jumped by 239% to £15.3mln (FY2019: £6.4mln) and diluted EPS increased 760% to 15.2p (2019: 2p).
Steve Flavell and Michael Hughes, co-chief executives, said: “While remote meetings will no doubt continue to be a competitive market, particularly beyond our core Professional Services sweet spot, other communications segments are opening up and accelerating even faster.
“The cloud telephony market is forecast to become a $26 billion market by 2024, and we're incredibly excited and encouraged by the commercial traction we've generated in just seven months since bringing this differentiated capability onto our core global platform.
“While 2021 will inevitably be a transitional year as we commercialise a broader technology platform, we have a strong balance sheet and are confident in our ability to manage the transition and provide the platform for strong, profitable growth."
LoopUp added that it ended the year with gross cash of £12.1mln and an improved net debt position of £0.7mln (FY2019: £11.5mln).
Shares jumped 20% to 87.5p.