The Megaport Ltd (ASX: MP1) share price is on watch this morning after the network-as-a-service provider announced the upcoming release of Megaport Virtual Edge. The product innovation will allow customers to tap into Megaport's platform to deploy and extend network functions in real time, without deploying hardware.
What does Megaport do?
Megaport has more than 1,800 customers that rely on its products to power their digital businesses. The company provides bandwidth which allows users including Facebook, Amazon, and Tesla to connect to cloud services and data centres. Monthly recurring revenues have increased more than four-fold since FY17 as ecosystem richness drives greater service connection opportunities.
What did Megaport announce?
Megaport says the development of Megaport Virtual Edge marks a transformation point for the company. The new technology empowers customers to build a unified, multi cloud network architecture that scales as business needs grow. SD-WAN (software defined–wide area network) capabilities are a feature of Megaport Virtual Edge, which allows companies to build higher performance wide area networks using lower cost, commercially available internet access. This allows more expensive wide access network technologies to be replaced.
"By creating a platform that will bridge various network access types directly to Megaport's SDN, we have effectively made it possible to connect to our leading ecosystem of service providers and data centres from anywhere in the world," said Bevan Slattery, founder and chair of Megaport.
"This will put the power of elastic interconnection in the hand of more businesses around the globe," he added.
How has Megaport been performing?
Megaport is due to release its full-year result this Wednesday. Investors will be expecting big things from the company – the Megaport share price is up 70% over the past year. Revenue in the June quarter was $17 million, a 12% increase quarter-on-quarter and 66% increase year-on-year.
Megaport has been expanding its network footprint to new markets while also deepening reach within existing metros. The company established a presence in Denmark and Spain during the fourth quarter, which brings the Megaport platform to 23 countries and 128 cities globally.
Megaport CEO Vincent English commented: "Megaport has continued its strong growth momentum, with solid revenue results throughout Fiscal Year 2020. Quarterly revenue was up 12% on the previous quarter to $17 million, and monthly recurring revenue reached a new high of $5.7 million, driven by existing customers."
Foolish takeaway
Megaport has now delivered 17 consecutive quarters of growth in annualised revenue, and the release of this latest product should support continued revenue growth. All eyes will be on the Megaport share price as investors digest today's news and await full-year results tomorrow.
