Autonomy has recorded a sharp increase in profits on the back of growth in the multi-media search market that it dominates.
The $500m (£270m) acquisition in November of Verity, a US rival, and rising demand for companies wanting to sort through unstructured data has given the Cambridge-based company a market share of about 70 per cent, it said yesterday.
Such is Autonomy's grip on the high end of enterprise search that it would struggle to make acquisitions, according to Mike Lynch, chief executive. "I think it's unlikely that we'll do another large transaction because there's not a lot out there," he said.
Mr Lynch said the etalk product - which sorts phone calls into searchable data and is used in call centres - was seeing fast growth. He also highlighted video searching as one focus for development.
Revenues in the first half of the year rose from $39m to $117.1m as Autonomy added companies such as Whirlpool and Rio Tinto to a customer base that already spans the BBC and Nasa.
Pre-tax profit rose in the first-half from $8.2m to $28m; earnings per share doubled from 4 cents to 8 cents.
Technology shares including Autonomy have had a tumultuous time in recent weeks, but Mr Lynch said: "The business hasn't seen any deterioration."
Autonomy's shares - which closed up 6p yesterday at 415p - have now clawed back most of their recent losses. Shore Capital, which has a 425p target price, upgraded its full-year pre-tax profit forecast from $52.4m to $52.9m.
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