LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in LED lighting and laser diode company ProPhotonix Ltd surged 22% Tuesday, after it said it more than halved its losses in 2013, driven by a 12% revenues increase and cost savings.
ProPhotonix consists of two business units; an LED systems manufacturing business based in Ireland, and a laser modules production and laser diode distribution business in the UK.
The group said it has begun 2014 with the "strongest ever" backlog at its business units, and gave a confident outlook for the year ahead, highlighting that it expects first-half revenue for the current financial year to be in the range of USD7.8 million and USD8.2 million. For the six months ended June 2013, it reported revenues of USD7.4 million.
For the year ended December 31, 2013, the group said it narrowed its pretax loss to USD1.2 million, compared with a pretax loss of USD2.9 million a year earlier, as revenues for the year increased 12% to USD15.6 million, up from USD13.9 million a year earlier, boosted by strong growth in its order book during the year. It said over half of total revenues came from within Europe, followed by North America with 31%.
It said its gross profit margin increased to 38.3% from 31.0% in 2012, due to a shift in product mix and an increase in volume.
In terms of market sectors, the group said that 79% of overall revenue came from the industrial sector, followed by 16% from the medical sector, while the homeland security and defence sector made up the remaining 5%.
ProPhotonix said it saw an improvement in business activity during 2013, with order bookings increasing 17% to USD17.6 million, and the backlog at December 31, 2013 up 31% on the prior year at USD6.9 million.
ProPhotonix shares climbed 22.24% or 0.375 pence, to be trading at 2.292 pence Tuesday afternoon.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; rowenaharrisdoughty@alliancenews.com; @rharrisdoughty
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