UKFast Bucks Recession Trend With Another Record Quarter
Manchester technology firm, UKFast, is celebrating another quarter of significant growth that takes the internet hosting company closer to surpassing its targets for the year.
Turnover in Quarter 3 (Q3) 2011 reached £4.3 million, representing an increase of nearly 40 per cent on the same period last year.
Net profit figures between July and September reveal a 103 per cent year-on-year increase. The figures are a culmination of existing customer sales and new business deals, with the 12-year-old business bolstering its ledger with 275 new customers.
UKFast founder and CEO, Lawrence Jones, said: “We set ourselves pretty ambitious targets at the beginning of the year – like we always do. We’ve had to work even harder to meet them because much of our effort this year has been focused on the development of new data centres. The completion of our facility in Trafford Park is allowing us to bring on hundreds of new customers who are benefitting from the best data centre space in the area.”
To cater for client growth, the company has increased its technical support and sales teams this year and now employs 143 staff compared to 103 at the same time last year.
Immediate plans include further data centre space in 2012 as Jones focuses on making UKFast the biggest provider of co-location facilities in the region.
He said: “The industry is moving so quickly and we are fortunate to be in a great position. Looking at it from our vantage point there are many key growth areas in hosting, including virtualisation but what is also abundantly clear is that, as a city region, we need to plan more data centre space. Having placed customer service at the centre of the hosting arena, it’s now our intention to do the same with co-location facilities. Manchester businesses deserve world beating data centres.”
With cash in the bank, Jones welcomes this breathing space that helps to foster an environment of innovation. “In the early years of Microsoft, Bill Gates had an ambition to maintain enough money in the bank to give the company a 12 month buffer. This gave his team the freedom to invent and create. I’m very proud of our Research & Development team winning the GM Chamber’s Innovation Award this year. We are close to Gates’s ambition now ourselves and there are definitely exciting times ahead.”
About UKFast
UKFast is one of Europe’s fastest-growing technical companies (as ranked by Deloitte) and has been at the heart of the UK internet industry for more than 10 years. In addition to being named as one of The Sunday Times best companies to work for, it won the UK IT Awards Employer of the Year in 2010.
Previous accolades include the industry’s Best Customer Service Award in 2009 and being named the ISPA UK’s Best Hosting Provider four years consecutively. UKFast has over 400,000 web domains on its network and over 4,000 clients across all industries. Clients include Virgin, Microsoft and UKTV. UKFast is a member of the Cloud Industry Forum.
