Italian cloud operator WIIT is looking at possible further acquisitions in Germany after its purchase of Dusseldorf-based myLoc to expand in Europe’s biggest market.
Milan-listed WIIT has seen its share price rise 88% this year as firms looked to boost their digital capabilities during the coronavirus crisis.
“Companies have been asking us for cloud services to allow their employees to work from home, while keeping their data safe and their businesses running during the coronavirus shutdown,” Alessandro Cozzi, WIIT’s CEO and founder told Reuters.
WIIT bought German peer myLoc from ProSiebenSat.1 in September, a 50 million euro deal the Italian firm sees as the first step in its cross-border growth strategy.
“We are looking at several M&A opportunities to build-up our business in Germany, using myLoc as a platform”, Cozzi said, adding WIIT was also looking at France as it targets another acquisition in the first half of next year.
Analysts forecast double-digit growth in Europe’s cloud market over the next few years, catching up with the United States as leading providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google ramp up investments overseas.
WIIT operates in the so-called private cloud service segment, which accounts for nearly a quarter of Italy’s 3 billion euro cloud market.
“We help small- and medium-sized enterprises manage a wide range of business-critical applications through dedicated networks as they ditch in-house data centres”, Cozzi said.
A company-provided consensus of analyst forecasts, which Cozzi said WIIT expected to meet, shows sales are seen rising by 52% to 52 million euros this year to top 70 million in 2021.
Meanwhile, WIIT’s core profit is expected to rise to 27.4 million euros next year, more than double that of 2019.
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