E2v Technologies interim profit rises despite challenging markets

(ShareCast News) - E2v Technologies reported a small jump in pre-tax profit and revenue for the first half and maintained its outlook for the current financial year despite "challenging markets".For the six months ended 30 September, pre-tax profit came in at £13.8m from £13m in the same period last year, as revenue rose to £109.5m from £102.3m.E2v said the imaging division saw good growth from industrial vision with new products taking market share, market growth in automatic data collection and the delivery of projects in Space.In RF Power, radiotherapy benefited from continued market growth, offset by the anticipated decline in defence.As expected Semiconductors had a slow start to the year, with lower demand for microprocessors and assembly and test services in Europe offset by the flow down on programmes increasing activity for US legacy product lines and growth from data converters for new applications.The imaging technology company declared an interim dividend of 1.6p per share, up from 1.5p.Chief executive officer Steve Blair said: "We achieved revenue growth in the first half, consistent with our full year expectations in what were challenging markets."Our focus for the second half is building, in Professional Imaging, Semiconductors and RF defence, on our satisfactory opening order book and delivering our technically challenging customer programmes in Space."At 1411 GMT, E2v shares were up 1.2% at 236.25p.