The long-suffering shareholders of Aconex Ltd (ASX: ACX) finally have something to smile about. Following the release of its quarterly update this morning the software-as-a-service company's share price has bolted higher by over 12% to $5.81 in early trade.
Prior to today the Aconex share price had dropped 37% in the last three months as the former market darling fell out of favour with investors. Despite quadrupling its full year profit in FY 2016, the result incredibly fell below the market's expectations.
But following a strong first quarter result Aconex appears to be back in favour with the market again. Today's update revealed that Aconex delivered cash receipts of $41.8 million in the first quarter, an increase of 44% on the prior corresponding period.
Furthermore, management provided a positive outlook for the year ahead. It is expecting revenue to grow to between $172 million and $180 million in FY 2017, up from $123.4 million in FY 2016.
This equates to impressive year on year growth in the region of 39% to 46% in FY 2017. After which management is predicting revenue growth of between 20% and 25% per year through to FY 2019.
With such a quality product I'm not at all surprised to see such strong growth projections. Aconex's popular construction collaboration platform is being used by some of the biggest names in the $10 trillion a year construction industry.
According to an earlier presentation the software transforms the way project teams work together to make the process fairer, easier, and more efficient for everyone. Management is of the belief that its platform can accelerate the pace of product delivery and help build five hospitals for the price of four.
Due to its strong growth prospects I believe that Aconex is still a great long-term buy and hold investment even after the strong gain today. Right now I'd put it up there with Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) and Class Ltd (ASX: CL1) as must buy tech shares.
