Provisional annual balance 2002: update increases operating result by 60 per cent!
Provisional annual balance 2002: update increases operating result by 60 per cent!
… the streamlined reorganisation is beginning to show first results…
… new product generation announced for 2003…
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Vienna, Frankfurt, April 14, 2003 +++ Vienna-based update software AG, Europe’s leading vendor of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, has announced provisional figures for the financial year 2002 (end: December 31 2002). The operating result could be increased significantly by 60 per cent, the gross operating result could be increased by 13.6 per cent by the CRM specialist. But the generally difficult economic situation also took their toll on update: revenues of 14.8 million Euros declined by 11.4 per cent compared to the previous year. However, compared to the market decline of 25 per cent, this is still a remarkable achievement.
Thomas Deutschmann, CEO, who took over the management of update in November 2002, immediately reacted on the tense market situation after taking over and started comprehensive restructuring initiatives. These already had a positive impact on the annual balance. At the same time, Deutschmann intensified the sales area by introducing a mixed model. Implementation of partner sales led to an increase in revenue of 8.5 per cent in the first half of 2002. Revenue figures rose by 10 per cent from 3.050 to 3.366 million Euros in the fourth quarter after a traditionally weak third quarter.
The operating result 2002 improved from -16.5 to -6.7 million Euros, which is equivalent to an increase of 60 per cent. At the same time, the flow of liquid funds dropped by 79 per cent to 3.9 million Euros compared to the same time last year. "The major development here were cost reductions of roughly 35 per cent", explains Thomas Deutschmann and points out the increase in efficiency in the Service and Maintenance areas. "Here we were able to reduce costs by 40 per cent from 7.9 million Euros in 2001 to 4.7 million Euros in 2002."
Cost reductions and product offensive
Gross profit now is 10 million Euros, which is an increase of 1.2 million Euros compared to the year before. The cost reduction was coupled with a product offensive, e.g. update.pda for WinCE and Palm OS or update.groupware for Lotus Notes and MS Outlook. update will accommodate the verticalisation trend and will focus on four key markets: Pharma/Chemical, Financial Services, Manufacturing and former state-owned enterprises.
The withdrawal of American providers makes room for potential
CEO Deutschmann sees the current withdrawal of many American CRM providers from the European market as a big opportunity for update: "We will be able to work this emerging potential with a completely new generation of marketing.manager: marketing.manager 6.0 will be available as a highly innovative development of the Client Server product and as a pure .net version and will be characterised by its sophisticated verticalisation", outlines Thomas Deutschmann.
IR Contact:
Jochen Zemroser
update software AG
Operngasse 17-21
A-1040 Vienna
Tel: +43 1 878 55 512
Fax: +43 1 878 55 505
Jochen.Zemroser@update.com
www.update.com
This is a translation from German into English.
