IT services firm Dimension Data said that better than expected revenue growth in Africa and Europe contributed to a strong trading performance in the first half of 2007.

The IT infrastructure provider announced its six month interim results today, for the period ended March 2007.

It said that "the first half of FY2007 was a period of outstanding progress across the business, with strong growth in all our key financial metrics, notably a doubling of earnings per share".

Interim pre-tax profit was said to be up from $28.7m last time to $56.5m on revenue that increased 22 per cent to $1.8bn.

Revenue in Africa grew to 48 per cent with an operating profit of 40.1 per cent.

The firm said strong performance in that region was due to public sector wins, expansion outside of South Africa, and high demand from African telecommunication service providers.

Revenue was said to be up 21.8 per cent in Europe on this time last year.

A more conservative figure of 4.5 per cent was posted for the US market, which generated an operating profit of $5.5m, according to the firm's results.

The group said: "While Dimension Data remains ideally positioned to benefit from significant market trends including the continued adoption of IP-based infrastructure and the implementation of the converged network, we expect our revenue growth rate in the second half of the year to be more moderate, tracking the historical growth rates of the recent past."

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