Arkphire forecasts €100m in sales as profits double

The Irish IT consulting and managed-services firm Arkphire has reported a doubling of operating profit for the second year in a row, as turnover jumped 41 per cent in 2017.

The company, whose partners include EMC, Dell and Cisco, has seen revenue rise from €20 million to just over €74 million over the past three years. It is now forecasting revenue of €100 million in 2018. Newly filed accounts show Arkphire recorded a €2.7 million operating profit on sales of €74.1 million for the 12 months to the end of June 2017. This comes after its operating profit jumped from €530,974 to €1 million in the prior year, as revenue increased by more than 60 per cent to €52.6 million.

"Last year proved to be another tremendous year for Arkphire, further accelerating the period of growth that the business has been enjoying," said Jimmy Dalton, the company's chief finance officer.

The latest accounts were boosted in part by the inclusion of a contribution from Bootstrap, which Arkphire acquired for an undisclosed sum in 2016. Bootstrap, which had annual turnover of €4 million at the time, contributed about €7 million in sales last year.

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Arkphire, which currently employs more than 80 people and is headquartered in Dublin, with an international office in London, dates back to 1981, when it was known as Memorex Telex. It has had a number of incarnations since then. After a takeover in 1998 it rebranded as EDS Global Services, before becoming AO Systems + Services Ireland when it was acquired by the German-owned IT provider AO Group, in 2006. The firm returned to Irish ownership in 2009 following a management buyout and relaunched as Arkphire in 2011.

The company was listed in the 20 fastest-growing tech businesses in Ireland at the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards last year and was ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Awards for Europe.