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Promethean has been hit as government cutbacks and the moribund pace of the recovery in western markets have hurt sales of its technology.

The company – which has seen its shares fall 70pc since its flotation in March last year – made profits of £3.3m in the six months to the end of June after revenues fell 11.9pc to £107.8m.

However, Promethean’s shares rose 4 to 59.75p after the company said the rate of revenue decline slowed in its second quarter, despite tough comparables in the first half of 2010.

Trading comparables are set to become softer in the second half.

Jean-Yves Charlier, chief executive, remained cautious despite the share price rise. “We expect our markets to remain challenging, due to government austerity measures and the resulting public sector budgetary constraints,” he said.

Promethean has been hit as government cutbacks and the moribund pace of the recovery in western markets have hit sales of its technology.

The company said it had spent £1.4m on restructuring costs in the half and had consolidated three sales forces globally into one.

Promethean cut its interim dividend from 1.05p to 0.8p, payable on September 24.

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