Calnex revenue up 25% to £27m amid ‘solid progress’

Calnex CEO Tommy Cook

Shares of Linlithgow-based telecoms testing and measurement firm Calnex Solutions plc rose as much as 8% on Tuesday after it said its revenue grew 25% to £27.4 million and profit before tax rose 21% to £7.2 million in the year to March 31, 2023.

Calnex also said trading in the first quarter of its new financial year “has continued as anticipated, and the board is confident in delivering results for the year in line with market expectations as revised in March 2023.”

Proposed final dividend is 0.62p per share, making a total of 0.93p — up from 0.84p in the prior year.

Customers of Calnex include BT, China Mobile, NTT, Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, Qualcomm, IBM and Meta.

Founded in 2006, Calnex is headquartered in Linlithgow, with additional locations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Stevenage, England and California in the US, supported by sales teams in China and India.

Calnex went public at 48p per share in October 2020 and its shares soared as high as £1.95 in January 2023. The shares current trade around £1.07, giving the firm a stock market value of about £94 million.

On March 7, Calnex shares fell about 33% after it published a “strong” update on the company’s trading performance but added a cautious outlook for the following year. Calnex warned on March 7 that some of its customers were currently taking a more cautious approach to investment decisions.

On Tuesday, Calnex CEO Tommy Cook said: FY23 was another year of solid progress where we executed on our strategy, increasing our addressable market, whilst successfully navigating the supply chain challenges, achieving revenue and profit growth, in line with market expectations.

While customer budgets remain restricted in the short term, customer engagement levels remain high, and we have been encouraged to see the early signs of a more stable macro environment.

“We are confident the market’s structural growth drivers will continue to drive long-term growth opportunities for Calnex.

“These include the need to build out new mobile networks to support the transition to 5G, and ongoing data centre investment to support the demand for cloud computing coupled with the need to be more energy efficient.

“The breadth of our customer base across multiple regions, expanding product portfolio and strong balance sheet, mean we look to the future with continued confidence.