Vislink results beat expectations but market remains challenging

LONDON (ShareCast) - Technology hardware and equipment group Vislink (LSE: VLK.L - news) said 2014 was a year of transformation with annual revenues and profits up even though the market remained challenging. The company group saw its revenues rise 3.4% to £61.9m, while pre-tax profit rose 73.5% to £5.5m, driving earnings per share slightly up from 3.1p to 3.2p.

Its surveillance and public safety division posted a good performance thanks to a successful delivery of the Home Office contract, which is expected to be completed during the first half of 2015.

On the flip-side, the company's communication systems division saw revenues decline 10.4% to £53.6m, due to challenges in the US and Middle East.

Executive chairman John Hawkins said 2014 was a year of "transformation" after it announced a partnership with Harmonic (NasdaqGS: HLIT - news) and saw the return of investing in software with the acquisition of Pebble Beach Systems.

He added: "After the year end, we announced a strategic relationship with GoPro (Xetra: A1XE7G - news) which opens up a new option for broadcasters and sports promoters globally. Vislink believes this new 'point of view' market holds huge potential." Despite continuing challenges in its market, Vislink said it had entered 2015 with renewed confidence thanks to an expansion in its software portfolio and a more efficient communication division thanks to a new leadership.

N+1 Singer analysts said the group's results were ahead of expectations. The broker said the results reflect the "changing mix within the business as it drove a greater proportion of its revenues from higher-margin software revenues".

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Vislink fell 5.98% to 48.42 on Tuesday at 13:59.