Dassault Systemes lifts 2021 outlook on surging software sales

(Reuters) - French software company Dassault Systemes on Tuesday hiked its 2021 forecasts on the back of strong momentum across its activities, including in its industrial systems and life sciences businesses.

The group, which makes 3D design software and technologies for manufacturing, infrastructure and healthcare groups, now expects non-IFRS revenue growth of 10%-11% this year, bringing its earnings per share to up to 0.91 euros ($1.07), adjusting for the company's five-for-one stock split earlier this month.

It had previously said it expects revenue growth of up to 10% and EPS of up to 0.86 euros. It also predicted further year-on-year growth for the current quarter.

The company noted strong contributions from its transport and mobility software as well as its life sciences business, which helps to manage clinical trials.

Its software was used in around 400 trials related to COVID-19 treatments and vaccines for some 200 companies, finance chief Pascal Daloz told reporters in a call - including those developed by Novavax, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

"Today the challenge is the variants," he said, adding that the company was using modelling and simulation to predict mutations and help develop vaccines that are effective against the most dominant strain.

Daloz said he expected that these companies would continue to use Dassault Systemes after the pandemic to conduct trials virtually from patients' homes instead of in hospitals.

For the April-June period, the group's non-IFRS earnings per share jumped 35% to 0.22 euros from revenues up 8% to 1.16 billion euros - a touch above analysts' estimates.

($1 = 0.8477 euros)

(Reporting by Sarah Morland in Gdansk, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Louise Heavens)