DroneShield Ltd (ASX: DRO) shares are catching the eye on Tuesday.
In morning trade, the small cap ASX stock is jumping over 12% to 41.5 cents.
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Why is this small cap ASX stock jumping?
Investors have been scrambling to buy the counter drone company's shares this morning after it released its latest quarterly update.
According to the release, Droneshield achieved a record $48 million of customer cash receipts and grants for the December quarter. This is five times larger than the next largest quarter on record.
This underpinned a record 12 months for the small cap ASX stock, with cash receipts and grants coming in at $73.5 million. This is five times greater than what was achieved in 2022.
Management notes that 80% of revenues were from repeat customers. In addition, it highlights that the US and Australia markets represent its largest revenue contributors. Approximately 68% of revenue came from the US and 23% came from Australia.
Pleasingly, this strong top line growth has allowed Droneshield to deliver a maiden profit before tax of $4 million. This compares to a $2.9 million loss before tax in 2022.
But if you thought its growth was over, think again. The company advised that it has a $30 million contracted order backlog, over $400 million in its sales pipeline, and 85 qualified opportunities. It also has no overweight exposure to any one customer.
At the end of the period, the small cap ASX stock had a cash balance of $57.9 million.
DroneShield CEO, Oleg Vornik, commented:
We are ready to deliver a strong 2024, after a record 2023. We are seeing continuing peak demand from our customer base globally, our competitive positioning and customer reputation are exceptional, and we are ready operationally to meet this demand.
