Softcat and Pure Storage provide investor cheer

Softcat has indicated that it kept the momentum going in the back end of its fiscal year, and the final results will provide investors with some cheer.

The channel player shared a year-end trading update covering the 12 months to 31 July, with the brief details indicating that its fourth quarter had been a solid one.

In an investor update in May, Softcat indicated that it was going to deliver solid numbers for the quarter to 30 April and reported that its fourth quarter was looking solid. This trading update refers back to that moment, underlining that its expectations were met.

“The group continued to trade well during the fourth quarter, supported by further conversion of larger solutions projects. As a result, the board now expects to deliver high-teens growth in full-year gross profit, and mid-teens growth in operating profit,” the statement declared.

The business was also able to remain cash generative, with its cash conversion for the year coming in at the top end of expectations.

Softcat has always maintained that there continue to be strong organic growth opportunities in the UK and that the business is in a good position to take advantage of growth areas, including artificial intelligence (AI), security and cloud.

“Looking ahead, Softcat remains well-positioned to deliver further growth. Excluding the significant incremental contribution from large projects in FY2025, the board expects to deliver low double-digit gross profit growth and high single-digit operating profit growth in FY2026,” the trading statement added. “Including the significant incremental contribution from large deals in the comparative period, this translates to reported rates of high single-digit gross profit growth and low single-digit growth in operating profit.”

Softcat will share more detailed insights into the fiscal year when it publishes its full results in October.

Elsewhere in the markets, Pure Storage also released an update for its second-quarter numbers. The data specialist has been actively pushing partners to pitch its platform offering, and the numbers indicate success in that strategy.

The vendor reported a 13% increase in revenues to $861m, with subscription services revenues climbing by 15% to come in at $414.7m.

Subscription annual recurring revenue now stands at $1.8bn, which is an 18% year-on-year improvement. Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) operating income was $4.9m.

“Pure Storage exceeded both its revenue and operating profit guidance in the second quarter, reflecting strong customer adoption of our platform strategy,” said Pure Storage’s chief financial officer, Tarek Robbiati. “Looking ahead, we remain committed to executing on our strategic priorities to drive profitable growth, and maintaining the flexibility to navigate evolving market conditions.”

The quarter saw Pure release its Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC) offering and introduce a range of next-gen products, including some flash arrays and blades.

“Our strong second-quarter results demonstrate ever more customers’ confidence in the value of the Pure Storage platform to advance their data storage and management now and into the future,” said Pure Storage CEO and chairman Charles Giancarlo. “Today, enterprise applications are stuck in inflexible legacy systems that lock data in silos. With Purity and Pure Fusion, customers virtualise their storage to create their own enterprise data cloud to unlock their data for business value.”