Shares at Bradford firm Pace Micro Technology were pushed up to a new high after the firm announced a set of stunning results.

The digital set-top box maker added 81p to 580p at one point as the City welcomed yesterday's stronger-than-expected interim results, reported in yesterday's Telegraph & Argus. This was close to its year high of 587p a few weeks ago.

The firm revealed a range of new products in London which were first demonstrated at the Western Cable Show in Los Angeles last month.

They demonstrated how the set-top box will be the prime mover in the smart home of the future, which will be wired to do things for householders like open the curtains using a remote control and allow people to carry out shopping and banking through their television.

The company's share price was just under 100p at the start of last year and has since gone up in leaps and bounds.

Fierce competition for market share between the UK's digital broadcasters has helped boost sales at the Salts Mill firm.

Pace currently supplies set-top boxes to BSkyB and ONdigital. It is the only supplier of digital boxes to cable television firms.

The company recently won a multi-million pound contract to supply at least 750,000 digital boxes to Time-Warner Cable.

The sales boost has pushed turnover up by a hefty 58 per cent to £157.2 million from £99.4 million last time. The firm also announced a 53 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to £12.7 million, compared with £8.3 million previously.

City analyst David Traherne, of Williams de Broe in London, said: "These are good results for Pace and so the share price has risen. The electronics sector is expanding at a fantastic rate around the world, which helps them.

"I have been following Pace shares from the early days and can remember a time when they were as low as 25p and nobody was interested.

"Since January last year they have shot up from just under 100p to the current high level of more than 550p."

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