REG - Spirent Comm PLC - Third Quarter 2021 Trading Update

Spirent CommunicationsAnnouncement

11/11/2021 07:00

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RNS Number : 0031S  Spirent Communications PLC  11 November 2021

SPIRENT COMMUNICATIONS PLC

Third Quarter 2021 Trading Update

 

London, UK - 11 November 2021: Spirent Communications plc ("Spirent", the
"Company" or the "Group") (LSE: SPT), a leading test, measurement, analytics
and assurance technology company for next-generation networks, applications
and devices, today issues the following Trading Update for the third quarter
of the Company's financial year, from 1 July to 30 September 2021, and for the
year to date.

 

Group performance

We are pleased to report continued momentum and the Board remains confident
that the Group will show solid progress in 2021. Our expectations for the full
year remain unchanged and in line with market consensus(1).

 

In the third quarter we secured several key strategic wins. These wins
included larger, longer-term contracts, that support our strategy to improve
visibility and build repeatable business by growing our footprint in our
customers' labs and continuing to move into their live networks. For the nine
months to the end of September, order intake growth was strong at 13 per cent
(organic 9 per cent) with revenue growth of 7 per cent (organic 5 per cent),
resulting in book to bill of 105 as we continue to build our orderbook. Once
again, 5G continues to be a strong driver of growth in demand across our
solution portfolio.

 

We have been managing the growing global supply chain challenges well and
consistent with many industries, are seeing more component cost rises which we
are responding to with price increases.

 

Lifecycle Service Assurance

Strong momentum and demand for products in both the lab and the live assurance
market resulted in good order growth in the third quarter. We continue to
secure multi-year contracts increasing longer term visibility.

 

Key wins included a large and strategic 5G order from Dish Networks, an
innovative new North American network operator that plans to become the first
telecom company to run its service on the public cloud. Dish will be utilising
both our lab-based and live network solutions to autonomously test and
validate its 5G network core.

 

Networks & Security

During the year we aligned our application and security test offerings more
closely with our high-speed Ethernet products and go-to-market. As a result,
application and security testing is gathering momentum as we continue to
support customers to develop their 5G infrastructure and has delivered growth
year to date compared to the prior year. We have made good progress in growing
our business with the Hyperscalers by focusing on their 5G initiatives. We are
winning high-speed Ethernet business across the spectrum, from supporting
Mobile Edge Compute initiatives to an industry-first commercial 800G win.
Lab-based activities at US government customers for our Positioning solutions
have yet to fully rebound and we expect full year Positioning revenue to be
similar to last year.

 

Commenting on the results, Eric Updyke, Chief Executive Officer, said:

 

"We are continuing to grow in our key focus areas, such as lab to live
assurance and driving our services offerings, whilst carefully managing
ongoing supply chain disruption. The cyclicality in the business continues to
reduce as we win more multi-year work and build sustainable revenues."

 

"Overall, we are on track to show full year progress in 2021 with, as in
previous years, trading performance weighted to the second half of the year
and to the final quarter. Whilst supply chain management has become more
challenging, our expectations for the full year remain unchanged."

 

Note

1.    Market consensus for 2021 includes ten analysts who have reported
forecasts as of 13 October, revenue $568 million and adjusted operating profit
$115 million.

 

- ends -

 

Enquiries

 Eric Updyke, Chief Executive Officer                      Spirent Communications plc      +44 (0)1293 767676
 Paula Bell, Chief Financial & Operations Officer                                          E: investor.relations@spirent.com (mailto:investor.relations@spirent.com)

 Charles Palmer/Dwight Burden/                             FTI Consulting Limited          +44 (0)20 3727 1000

Jamille Smith

                                                                                           E: SCspirent@fticonsulting.com (mailto:SCspirent@fticonsulting.com)

 

About Spirent Communications plc

Spirent Communications plc (LSE: SPT) is the leading global provider of
automated test and assurance solutions for networks, cybersecurity, and
positioning. The Company provides innovative products, services and managed
solutions that address the test, assurance and automation challenges of a new
generation of technologies, including 5G, SD-WAN, Cloud, autonomous vehicles
and beyond. From the lab to the real world, Spirent helps companies deliver on
their promise to their customers of a new generation of connected devices and
technologies. Further information about Spirent Communications plc can be
found at https://corporate.spirent.com/ (https://corporate.spirent.com/) .

 

Spirent Communications plc Ordinary Shares are traded on the London Stock
Exchange (ticker: SPT; LEI: 213800HKCUNWP1916L38). The Company operates a
Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) programme with each ADR representing
four Spirent Communications plc Ordinary Shares. The ADRs trade in the US
over-the-counter (OTC) market under the symbol SPMYY and the CUSIP number is
84856M209.  Spirent ADRs are quoted on the Pink OTC Markets electronic
quotation service which can be found at
https://www.otcmarkets.com/marketplaces/otc-pink
(https://www.otcmarkets.com/marketplaces/otc-pink) .

 

Spirent and the Spirent logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Spirent Communications plc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks
mentioned herein are held by their respective companies. All rights reserved.

 

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements which are made in good
faith and are based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as assumptions
about future events. You can sometimes, but not always, identify these
statements by the use of a date in the future or such words as "will",
"anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "project", "intend", "plan", "should",
"may", "assume" and other similar words. By their nature, forward-looking
statements are inherently predictive and speculative and involve risk and
uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that
will occur in the future. You should not place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance
and are subject to factors that could cause our actual results to differ
materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The Company
undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in
this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise.

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