LONDON (Alliance News) - Touch sensors manufacturer Zytronic PLC Tuesday reported higher profit in the first half of its financial year, driven by higher revenue and a significant margin improvement as it sold more profitable sensors for things like cash dispensers, gaming machines and signage.
The company said pretax profit in the six months to end-March rose to GBP1.4 million, from GBP755,000 a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP8.8 million, from GBP8.5 million, and its gross profit margin improved to 33.9%, from 26.0%.
It increased its interim dividend to 2.85 pence, from 2.75p, as net cash rose to GBP4.6 million, from GBP2.8 million.
The company said its margin improvement was driven by a 9% increase in touch sensor revenue to GBP6.8 million, a better mix of sales of larger format touch products, as well as production efficiencies.
"The touch sensor business benefited from a redesign in the ATM market, increased orders from ticket machine manufacturing in EMEA and large format sized gaming applications in the USA. Our newer ultra-large format multi-touch technology solution for signage and interactive table applications also made encouraging progress," the company said in its statement.
"We have a good pipeline of future prospects from both existing and new customers and with current trading continuing at the recently improved levels, we expect to make further progress," Chairman Tudor Davies said.
Zytronic shares were up 4.5% at 238.75 pence Tuesday.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
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Zytronic (ZYT)