Shares of Senetas Corporation Limited (ASX: SEN) skyrocketed as much as 39% when the market opened this morning following a very positive update from the group. They're trading 33.3% higher at 12 cents at the time of writing.
Hardly a household name, Senetas provides high assurance encryption hardware designed to protect data while it is travelling between sites. Its customers include governments and businesses such as cloud, data centre and network service providers.
Indeed, the shares have been on a rollercoaster ride over the last 12 months, trading as high as 22 cents in July 2015 and a low of just 8.7 cents as recently as yesterday.
In a similar situation to that facing other small-cap tech businesses such as Prophecy International Holdings Limited (ASX: PRO), investors were worried about slowing growth at a time where growth should really have been ramping up.
Operating revenue rose just 7% during the first-half of financial year 2016, while net profit after tax (NPAT) actually fell 18% to $1.59 million. It also guided for full-year net profit before tax (NPBT) of $5 million at the time.
However, a stronger-than-expected sales result in June has significantly boosted that result. Senetas now expects NPBT to be between $6.8 million and $7.1 million, topping that guidance by between 36% and 42%.
The company also said its new 100Gbps high assurance encryptor is due to commence customer testing in August, with a release planned for later in 2016. Investors can expect more information regarding the full-year results around 26 August, but until then, things are certainly looking better for Senetas.
