Newcastle-based software giant Sage Group, the UK’s largest listed tech company, said on Friday it expects full-year organic recurring revenue growth to be at the top end of its previous forecast, following higher subscriptions. 

The positive forecast comes as Sage attempts to move more products to cloud-based subscription services from packaged software.

Sage is a FTSE 100 company with a stock market value of roughly £8 billion. The group has 13,000 employees and more than three million customers in 23 countries.

Sage said that for the six months ended March 31, 2019, its statutory revenue rose 6.4% to £957 million, and it delivered recurring revenue growth of 10% to £779 million.

In its outlook, Sage said: “After strong performance in H119, due to early success with the implementation of our strategy and noting a somewhat softer recurring revenue comparator in H118, we expect FY19 organic recurring revenue growth to be at the top end or slightly exceed the guided range of between 8-9% and expect SSRS and processing revenue to be at the lower end or below the guided range of flat to mid-single digit decline.

“Overall, expectations for full year FY19 total revenue remain unchanged and the group maintains its organic operating profit margin guidance of 23-25%.”

Sage CEO Steve Hare said: “We are encouraged by the strong start to FY19.

“Sage’s vision is to become a great SaaS company and by focusing on customers, colleagues and innovation we are starting to see evidence of successful strategic execution.

“This is reflected in the strong performance in high quality recurring revenue, underpinned by subscription in the first half of the year.

“We will continue to focus on driving high-quality recurring and subscription revenue in the second half of the year.”