Phoenix sees confidence returning as sales rise
IT services firm upbeat as annual revenue rises 10.5 per cent to £271.6m
Phoenix IT Group has claimed that confidence is returning to the IT services market as it posted a 10.5 per cent jump in annual revenue.
All three of the London-listed firm's divisions – Servo, ICM Business Continuity and Phoenix IT Services – enjoyed organic growth as group sales for the year to 31 March rose from £245.8m to £271.6m year on year.
Pre-tax profit was roughly flat at £25.3m.
The firm merged its two end-user businesses under the ICM banner on 4 April and chief executive Nick Robinson was cautiously upbeat about the health of the outsourcing market.
"We have seen some confidence returning to the IT services market in the UK, with businesses now proceeding with IT projects which had been deferred and many organisations, in both the public and private sectors, continuing to see outsourcing as a key method of reducing their own cost bases," he said.
Breaking out the two end-user division's performances, ICM Continuous Business posted underlying profit from operations of £14.4m on revenue that rose 4.4 per cent to £55.5m. Servo logged an underlying profit from operations of £8.3m on revenue that rose 11 per cent to £98.2m.
Its partner services business, Phoenix IT Services, posted underlying profit from operations of £16.7m on revenue that rose 13.1 per cent to £117.9m. However, Robinson admitted there had been a scarcity of large-contract opportunities.
"The divisional order book, which was boosted at the beginning of the year by a number of large contract wins in the previous year, reduced by £53.7m to £140.7m (2010: £194.4m)," he said.
"This reduction has in part been driven by a structural move in our market to shorter contracts."
Robinson added that the firm would target cloud computing growth in 2011.
"The breadth of services that we can offer via the merged end-user division leads us to anticipate further growth in managed hosting and cloud services into the current financial year," he said.