Sophos’s share price surges on positive full year outlook
The share price of Sophos is surging today after upgrading its full year outlook when it posted its results.
The share price of the cyber security giant were 7.42 per cent up at 270.25p per share in early afternoon trading.
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The company said after a strong start to the year the group has improved its outlook for 2016 financial year for like-for-like billings growth, "to now be in the range of high teens to 20 percent". The company added:
This reflects a strong performance in the first half of the year and a second half expectation of mid to high teens like-for-like billing growth.
Following a strong billings performance, first half cash earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is now expected to be slightly higher than one third of the full-year. This is despite a more equal spread in marketing costs across the year than in previous periods.
The company has been able to bring in a significant number of customers, it said, allowing it to grow billings and raise its full year outlook.
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Sophos floated in June, where it was valued it at £1.01bn, one of the biggest flotations in the UK by a technology company.
"Cybersecurity remains the number one priority for IT executives across enterprises of all sizes, and within an environment of strong secular growth in IT security, Sophos continues to outperform the market in each of our core segments of enduser and network security," Kris Hagerman, chief executive, said. "The first half has been marked by continued strength across all major regions and product categories, with our performance exceeding our internal expectations."