TV set-top box maker Pace raises full-year profit forecast

London: British set-top box maker Pace Plc’s first-half profit more than tripled and the company said it expected full-year profit to be higher than its earlier forecast.

Shares in Pace rose as much as 8 per cent to 299 pence, making the stock one of the top gainers on the FTSE 250 mid-cap index on Tuesday morning.

“Operationally, the firm is in a far healthier position than 12-18 months back,” Jefferies analyst Lee Simpson wrote in a note. Simpson maintained his “buy” rating on the stock but raised his price target to 338 pence from 263 pence.

Pace’s 2012 first half was hurt as flooding at a supplier’s plant in Thailand in late 2011 disrupted deliveries of hard disk drives.

The company did not provide a full-year profit forecast number.

Pretax profit for the first half of this year rose to $68.6 million from $21.4 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 31 per cent to $1.32 billion.

Revenue from North America — Pace’s largest market — rose 62 per cent to $839.0 million, driven largely by strong demand from DIRECTV and Comcast Corp for its media servers. A media server is a device or software that is used to store digital media.

Pace’s three largest customers — AT&T, DIRECTV and Comcast — accounted for 59 per cent of total revenue, up from 44 per cent a year earlier.

The TV decoder maker, which made an unsuccessful attempt to buy Google Inc’s set-top box maker late last year, said Europe accounted for 12 percent of revenue in the first half, down from 18.8 percent a year earlier.

“In Europe we missed a couple of cycles,” Chief Executive Mike Pulli told Reuters.

“We anticipate inside of Europe some good news coming out.

There is a big IBC show in September and we will probably have some news coming up to that show.” Yorkshire, Northern England-based Pace said net debt fell to $68.2 million from $163.3 million at the end of last year.

Pace shares were trading up 6 per cent at 295.4 pence at 0939 GMT.