A Scottish company that installs smart meters for energy firms has posted a 92 per cent hike in pre-tax profit.
Smart Metering Systems said its statutory profit before tax was £16 million in the year ended December 31, 2022, as it underlined confidence in its outlook for 2023 amid a rising installation run rate.
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Revenue generated from meter rental and data contracts rose 13% to £97.1m, while its smart meter portfolio increased to 2.1 million against 1.7m the year before.
The Glasgow firm’s contracted smart meter order pipeline of 2.17m compares to 2.55m the year before, reflecting a contract win and net of 480,000 installations, with continued growth in meter installation run rate, averaging 45,000 per month in the second half of the year against 30,000 per month for the same period last year.
READ MORE: Glasgow SMS smart meters revenue, profit increase
Its battery portfolio increased to 860MW from 620MW. The company also hiked its dividend rate by 10%.
Tim Mortlock, SMS chief executive, said: "We have delivered another year of strong performance across all our key metrics.
“The strong momentum in our meter and grid-scale batteries businesses provides us with confidence in our 2023 and longer term outlook - we will continue to deliver on our sustainable promises."
READ MORE: Glasgow company to raise £175m of equity to fuel expansion plan
He said: “We also see significant market opportunities to further accelerate our portfolio of CaRe assets, including EV charging infrastructure and Behind-the-meter solar and storage.
“Meeting the key challenges of energy security, affordability and sustainability - SMS is strongly positioned to provide the knowledge, engineering, data platforms and services behind the UK's move to net zero."
The firm also said: "SMS made the decision through 2021 and 2022 to diversify further our supply chain to four meter manufacturing partners, which provided assurance in the near term future cost for a large proportion of our meter purchases and we increased the level of buffer stock we hold in our UK warehouses.
"Whilst not without some impact on working capital, these decisions have reduced the impact of inflationary cost increases and ensured that stock availability has not been an impediment to delivering our pipeline."
Shares in SMS closed down 9p, or 1.1%, at 810p.
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