UK cloud firm Iomart sees annual profits soar by 56%

Glasgow-based cloud computing company Iomart has reported a pre-tax profit up 56% to £10.7m for the year ending March 2013. Demand for cloud storage, mobility and connectivity services has boosted its growth and revenues, according to the firm.

The private cloud provider’s annual revenue grew 29% from last year’s £33.5m to £43.1m this year and its adjusted earnings before tax grew 48% to £16.5m.

Since March 2010, when Iomart reported its first year of profit, revenues have increased by 135%; profit before tax by 970%; and adjusted EBITDA by 430% - a reflection of the growing interest in cloud-based services.

The company has acquired its own network and UK datacentre estate which are used only by Iomart and its cloud customers. The datacentre facilities are not marketed at the low margin colocation and power market.

This helps to provide customers with cloud computing security and sovereignty of data, and sets the supplier apart from its competitors in that it is essentially a cloud computing service provider with its own assets, according to the company.

In its last financial year, Iomart acquired three hosting companies– Skymarket for £1.4m, Melbourne Server Hosting for £6.7m, and Internet Engineering Limited (trading as HostingUK) for £1.4m.

It also invested in a resilient fibre network across its eight datacentres and has started expanding its Maidenhead datacentre capacity by a further 600 racks to support future demand for data storage.

Chief executive Angus MacSween said: “The market we address is growing and evolving. Mobile technology has changed the way we access the internet and this new borderless access model means the only way to deliver services securely and efficiently is from central points through the cloud.

“Our datacentres are at the heart of this and with our growing credibility and strength we expect to be able to penetrate further into the corporate environment.”

The company is “well placed to deliver an ever wider range of cloud services,” he added.

Among the company’s 300,000 customers are Misys, the Science Museum, Logic3 and IT support specialist Cheeky Munkey.

This year Iomart’s board proposed to pay a final dividend of 1.40p per share to shareholders, representing an increase of 56% over the dividend last year.