Diligent Board Member Services, which provides software for company directors, continued its exponential sales growth with new record in the March quarter as its shares rose to a record price.
BUSINESSDESK: Diligent Board Member Services, which provides software for company directors, continued its exponential sales growth, chalking up a new record in the March quarter and recording its third successive operating profit. Its shares rose to a record price.
Diligent said first quarter sales of $US8.2 million compared to $US3m in the same three months of 2011 and nearly equal to its revenue for all of calendar 2010.
It also compares to $US6.5m in the December quarter.
The software-as-a-service (Saas) company added 205 new clients in the latest quarter, up from 64 in the year-earlier quarter, including 65 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and 32 Nasdaq companies, it said.
Annualised sales, or likely recurring sales, at the end of the quarter totaled $US32.4m.
Diligent, which holds its annual shareholders' meeting in Auckland today, said its cashflow position also improved by more than $US3.2m to $US12.2m at March 31.
The company expects these trends to continue through the year and Diligent's operating margins, profitability, sales and cash position should all improve.
“We feel the company is well positioned to deliver another year of exceptional performance and outstanding value to our clients and shareholders,” it said.
Diligent now serves 1231 public and private companies with more than 1800 boards and 33,000 users worldwide and said sales growth in Europe and Asia-Pacific, “in particular, was gratifying”.
It now counts 189 Fortune 1000 companies as clients, with 26 added in the latest quarter.
Client upgrades, which the company rate an important indicator of customer satisfaction, totalled a record $US1.5m.
The company said it recruited and trained three additional account managers, two new customer support people and three IT people in the three months to help handle the new growth.
Diligent shares rose 2.9% to a record $3.60 from about $1 this time last year and from as low as 7 cents in March 2009.
