UK cyber security firm Sophos has seen revenues rise in its H1 2017 results as it continues its focus on the mid-market.
The company achieved 9.7 percent growth in its GAAP revenues, hitting $256.9 million.
However, Sophos saw an operating loss of $24.6 million.
Sophos said that new customer billings were up 19.9 percent year-on-year, driven by Unified Threat Management and the Sophos Central platform.
For the rest of the year, the Board expects mid-teens percentage billings growth on a like-for-like basis and modest cash EBITDA margin expansion. The company expects revenue growth to be mid-teens.
Kris Hagerman, Chief Executive Officer, said that the results were in line with the company’s outlook.
“We continued to outgrow the IT security market, supported by a strong demand environment in our target market, industry-leading technology, the quality and reach of our extensive partner channel, the consistency of our operational execution, and the strength of our financial model, where we benefit from high levels of recurring subscription business.
“As we enter the second half of the fiscal year we expect continued strong growth, in particular as we benefit from key new product releases in next-generation endpoint and next-generation firewall, and the continued momentum of our Sophos Central cloud management platform.”
At an event in June Hagerman reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the mid-market as he hailed ongoing growth at the company.
At a Sophos event held at the company’s HQ in Oxford, he stated that the company was the only vendor focusing on the “enormous opportunity” of the 60 million mid-market companies worldwide, or those with under 5000 employees. In the results the proportion of billings to small and medium sized enterprises remained consistent year-on-year.
Explaining this focus, Hagerman said that while these companies faced major security problems, they typically had “zero or one” IT security specialists employed at the company.
Sophos’s pitch is about simplifying security, combining network and endpoint security.
