Spirent Reports 2010 Prelims

Order intake growth of 17%, resulting in a book to bill ratio of 105.

Operating profit up 30% to $112.7 million on revenue up 13% to $482.2 million.

Return on sales increased to 23% from 20%.

Adjusted basic earnings per share up 31% to 11.62 cents after eliminating the impact of the change in the effective tax rate. Basic earnings per share down 14% to 11.77 cents.

Final dividend increased by 40% to 1.40 cents per share (equivalent to 0.86 pence per share).

Strong cash generation resulted in cash and cash equivalents of $223.9 million compared to $173.9 million in the previous year.

Acquisition of The Fanfare Group, Inc. for $15.0 million completed on 16 February 2011.

Operational highlights

During 2010 demand for Spirent's solutions increased as our customers invested in:
- data center technologies to enable cloud computing and virtualization;
- growth of Ethernet across telecom and datacom network infrastructures;
- expansion in mobile internet driving exponential growth in data traffic;
- new investment in global positioning technologies to modernise GPS and to upgrade other satellite navigation systems.

Spirent introduced new test solutions to address increasing customer demand:
- higher speed Ethernet data test solutions on Spirent TestCenterTM to validate network performance, availability, security and scalability of cloud computing using Spirent test methodology;
- wireless test solutions for the rollout of LTE networks and for higher 3G wireless network speeds;
- new positioning test capabilities to serve the rapid expansion of satellite navigation and location based services.

Spirent Communications plc