4 December 2002 Despite the technology spending downturn, British companies dominate Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s 2002 European Technology Fast 500, accounting for 140 or 28% of the companies identified.

The fastest growing British company is Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), which boasts a growth rate of 4,786%, based on its average three-year growth rate. CDT develops flat panel displays based on light emitting polymer technology.

Despite the dot-com crash, a number of Internet companies are also highlighted, including web hosters Fasthosts Internet and Host Europe and Internet service providers (ISP) such as Affinity Internet and Easynet. Star Internet, which was founded as a business ISP, has grown by 453% as a result of the success of its MessageLabs managed anti-virus and anti-spam scanning services.

But not all companies in the table are currently a picture of health. For example, sales have plunged this year at public key infrastructure (PKI) encryption software vendor nCipher, while revenues have stagnated at highly-rated semiconductor designer ARM Holdings.

Indeed, trying to maintain such fast growth can often leave businesses badly exposed when growth suddenly falters or even just slows down by more than expected. This has happened to a number of past Fast 500 high flyers.

Infoconomy links:
Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu Fast 500