Interim Management Statement

RNS Number : 4569B

Anite PLC

18 February 2011

 



18 February 2011

Anite plc

Interim Management Statement

Anite plc ("Anite" or "the Company"), the leading provider of software solutions to the international wireless and leisure travel industries, today announces an Interim Management Statement, covering the period from 1 November 2010 to 17 February 2011. 

Trading

Overall trading in the quarter ended 31 January 2011 ("Q3") continued the encouraging trends of the first half, with Group order intake, revenue and adjusted operating profit¹ ahead of the same period last year and of the Board's expectations for the period, with the two Wireless businesses providing the improvement.   

In Wireless, both the Handset and Networks businesses reported order intake, revenues and adjusted operating profits in excess of the same period last year.  Q3 trading for these businesses continued to benefit from a recovery in 2G/3G markets, with the additional benefit in Handsets of a continued steady increase in 4G-LTE revenues. The latter have represented 30% of overall Handset revenue in the year to date.

In Travel, revenue and adjusted operating profit in Q3 were in line with the same period last year, continuing at a similar rate to that experienced in the first half of this year.  The Travel business has continued to make good progress on its major long-term @comRes contracts.  Q3 order intake in Travel was down on the same period last year, which included a significant contract extension with TUI in Germany.      

¹  Adjusted operating profit is defined as operating profit for continuing operations before share based payments, amortisation of acquired intangible assets, restructuring costs, other gains and losses and recycled hedge losses.

LTE update

Since we reported our half year results on 1 December 2010, there have been further developments in LTE, both in the overall market and specifically within Anite's two Wireless businesses. 

On 16 December 2010, GCF, the global standards body for LTE, announced certification of the first two elements of conformance testing, a further milestone in the maturity of the conformance testing regime. Through the period, Anite's Handset business has maintained its clear lead for certified protocol test cases available to customers.  Although to date we have seen some initial orders for LTE conformance test solutions, the real market for these is only expected to develop materially in Anite's future financial years.

In Networks, our product portfolio has been enhanced by the purchase of the Invex product line, announced on 10 January 2011.  Following this acquisition, the Networks business launched its new LTE compliant hardware based benchmarking system along with an in-house scanning receiver at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this week.

Financial position

Anite continues to report a robust financial position. Net cash as at 31 January 2011 was £29.3m (31 October 2010: net cash of £28.4m). The reported level of net cash is before taking account of the liability on the Group's currency swap which, as previously announced, has been fixed at £21.6m. 

Full year outlook

The trends indicated at the half year results are expected to continue for the balance of the year although, as always, the final quarter of the financial year ending 30 April 2011 will be critical to the Group's full year results.  Travel in particular needs to finalise contracts for existing customers and prospects if it is to achieve the Board's expectations for its full year performance.  However, the better than expected Q3 trading performance in Handsets has partially reduced final quarter risk in the Wireless division and is expected to mitigate any shortfall in Travel.  

On balance the Board is therefore more confident about the Group achieving at least current market expectations for the year as whole.

Commenting, Christopher Humphrey, Anite's Chief Executive said:

"Anite's Q3 trading performance was better than expected and continues to reduce the risk around the full year outcome.  LTE market developments provide encouragement for the future prospects in our Wireless businesses."

- Ends -

Anite plc	www.anite.com
Christopher Humphrey, Chief Executive	01252 775200
Richard Amos, Group Finance Director
MHP Communications	020 3128 8100
Reg Hoare/Anthony Arthur/Giles Robinson

 

END

 

 

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