Sage, the UK accounting software company that is racing to reshape its business to compete with web-based rivals, has reassured analysts that it is set to meet full-year earnings guidance.
In a quarterly trading update, the FTSE 100 business said it was confident of achieving a 28 per cent operating margin this financial year, with at least 6 per cent revenue growth.
Such words of reassurance are important for investors in Sage, whose new chief executive Stephen Kelly, who took the top job at Sage last November, has vowed to overhaul the Newcastle based business,
Somewhat like a company that still sells music CDs in the face of competition from Spotify and iTunes, Sage's traditional business of installing software in customers' offices is threatened by nimbler start-ups whose products are web and so-called "cloud" based.
Sage is moving with the times as fast as possible, however. Its online cloud-based accounting and payroll system Sage One had 86,000 paying customers at the end of its last financial year, although this compares with over 1m customers who are still using its traditional, on-premise products.
Mr Kelly has launched a plan to attract millions of new customers with a mobile accounting apps that could allow business owners to do their books on their smartphones.
For the first nine months of this year, Sage said on Wednesday, group revenue increased 6 per cent on an organic basis.
The third quarter growth was 7.5 per cent, year on year, although this was flattered by relatively weak trading in the comparable period last year.