Further IT growth on the Horizon as company announces profits of €9.1m

HORIZON Technology has reported a 5% increase in sales revenues for 2005, up from €281 million to €294m.

Its trading profits rose 7% to €9.1m, from €8.5m, while the group achieved a 10% increase in earnings per share, to 9.73 cent, and said it expects modest market growth to continue.

Despite the improved performance and the positive outlook, shares in the group fell 13 cent to €1.13 in Dublin, by late afternoon, as investors took some profits.

Horizon provides software solutions to industry, and, in its statement accompanying the results, the company noted that its enterprise solutions division last year experienced very strong performance.

In that market segment, revenues increased by over 10% while trading profits were ahead by 12% reflecting higher margins in the division.

Enterprise solutions, the group's key division, accounted for 88% of the group's combined trading profits.

Its distribution and channel services business encountered a "challenging year" as it faced intense price competition, continued volume increases, unit price depreciation and margin contraction resulting in a revenue fall of 3%.

Over the past 18 months, Horizon has entered into new deals with IBM, EMC Corporation and Veritas Software Corporation in Britain.

In that time-frame, it has signed off on new deals with IBM, BMC Software, Acer Corporation and O2 in the Irish market.

In February, the group completed the acquisition of EquIP Technology for 15.5m and placed over seven million new ordinary shares with institutional investors.

Horizon said it expects modest market growth will continue as some expansion is likely in investment technology spending by corporate customers.

Overall, Horizon said the outlook for information technology was positive.

The company added that market intelligence suggested large organisations were positive on their expectations on future IT spending.

The company believes that the mobile telecommunications sector, where competition is intense among suppliers, will continue to perform.