Shareholders in Saltaire-based global digital technology developer for pay TV and broadband operators Pace plc have been told that the company is on track to beat sales expectations during the first half of its financial year.

Chairman Allan Leighton updated the company’s annual meeting on progress during the 16 weeks to April 23 following Pace’s return to profitability in 2012 which had made it well placed for further progress.

Mr Leighton said: “I am pleased to report that Pace has made an encouraging start to the new financial year with strong revenue growth in the period, in line with our expectations.

“We expect revenue for H1 2013 will be ahead of H1 2012, driven largely by continuing demand for media server products in North America and the comparative half being impacted by hard disk drive supply disruption.

“Profitability is in line with our expectations and the robust cash flow generation has continued. We continue to focus on the execution of our strategic plan and have made good headway in the period.”

Shareholders were told that Pace’s good start to 2013 meant that the company’s management remained confident of achieving the goals outlined last month, including maintaining revenues for 2013 more of less in line with the previous year at around £1.6 billion; achieving an operating margin of around 7.5 per cent and achieving a positive cash position at the end of 2013.

Mr Leighton said the ‘win rate’ and pipeline of new business remained strong across all areas of the software and services operations and good progress had been made in the delivery of the landmark customer projects won in 2012.

Leading international cable operator Liberty Global had chosen Pace to provide media server products to a number of its European operations.

Pace has also been selected by Telefonica as the major supplier of high definition ‘zapper’ and PVR (personal video recorder) devices for its pay TV operations in Latin America as part of the rollout of the Telefonica global service platform. Initial deployments would take place in Brazil and Chile later in the year.

Pace was transforming its supply through implementing a new ‘product lifecycle management system’ and related engineering processes across the business.

It would maintain its payTV hardware leadership position as the world;s number one set top box provider and was also looking to widen its operations into software, services and integrated solutions.

Pace will announce its results for the half year to June 30 on Sunday, July 30.