Smiths Group has seen its revenue increase 15.8% year-on-year in the three months to 1 November, with analysts describing the results as "some relief" for the firm.

The engineering group said the performance reflected "particularly strong organic revenue" in Smiths Detection, which delivered double-digit revenue growth, as well as in John Crane and Flex-Tek aerospace, which saw high and low single-digit growth respectively.

Following the launch of an acceleration plan to deliver footprint and process improvements for resilience and scalability, Smiths Group said that each of its businesses has now initiated specific initiatives under the programme.

The firm has also announced it is resuming its share buyback scheme by initiating the second tranche of the programme, increasing the total amount from £100m to £150m.

The second tranche totalling £100m is set to complete by the end of the financial year.

As a result, the additional buyback will lead to the firm returning £1.2bn in the past three years through buybacks and dividends.

Chief executive officer at Smiths Group, Roland Carter, said: "We entered our new financial year with a strong order book, driving a very positive first quarter and with all our businesses contributing to the double-digit organic revenue growth. This gives us the confidence to raise our full-year guidance for organic revenue growth and margin. We also announce today an increase in, and the resumption of, our share buyback programme.

"Innovation and execution remain a major focus as we advance our new product development and commercialisation capabilities, and our productivity improvements, which contributed to the strong quarter. We also benefited from a strong performance in our US business, which represents around 45% of revenue, and which was accretive to our overall growth.

"Our strategy to deliver profitable growth from secularly attractive markets continues to drive our performance."

Smiths Group said it now expects organic revenue growth of between 5% to 7% in the full financial year, an upgrade from the original guidance of between 4% and 6%.

Growth in the first half of the year is “heavily weighted to this first quarter reflecting delivery timing.

Investment director at AJ Bell, Russ Mould, concluded: "Smiths Group appears to be firing on all cylinders based on its first-quarter trading update with an uplift in margins now expected for the year as a whole.

"This helped arrest a year-to-date decline in the share price with several areas of the business seeing strong organic revenue growth too. It will come as some relief to recently appointed Carter who had to deliver a disappointing set of full-year results just months into his tenure in September.

"It may also reduce any clamour for a further break-up of a business which has several moving parts. It has faced pressure on this front before, leading to the divestment of its medical business in 2022. Smiths has defended its current model with a group of leading niche engineering businesses and when all areas of the business are contributing as they did in the three months to 1 November, this argument carries greater weight."

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