Sybase, Inc. recently reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2009.
"2009 was obviously a great year of major accomplishment for Sybase," stated John Chen, chairman, CEO and president, during the Q4 earnings call. "We are very pleased that we delivered consistent financial performance throughout the year," which culminated in "the best quarter of the company history in Q4 and a third consecutive year of record revenue, earnings, as well as cash flow." For the full year, he noted, revenue came in at $1.17 billion, the highest ever, and above the company's outlook as it entered into 2009, 12 months ago.
Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2009 grew 9% to $331.7 million compared with $305.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. Sybase's total 2009 revenue of $1.17 billion represented an increase of increase of 3% year over year. Highlights included database license revenue, which increased 9% for Q409, and 22% for the full year; and messaging services, which increased 30% for Q409 and 12% for the full year.
Commenting on the sustainability of Sybase's database business growth, Chen said that in the past quarter, "We added 248 new ASE customers and 66 new IQ customers." The database business did well in the quarter as well as the whole year, he said, adding, "We have reason to believe that it will continue to grow at or above the market rates. Actually, we expect to grow above the market rate."
According to Chen, both existing and new customers appreciate the ongoing innovation of Sybase's core platform. "For example, in Q4 we released our ASE 15.5 ahead of schedule, which should result in meaningful revenue contribution in 2010." The in-memory options came out as part of the new 15.5, which enables data virtualization for high volume, high-concurrent user applications, as well as a new option called the Advanced Backup Services option that integrates the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager to increase the efficiency of data backups and retrievals.
In Sybase's analysis, storage and storage software are expected to have a good year in 2010, Chen said, "and so I hope that this will ride some momentum there."
Additionally, due to a large number of Sybase's customer base that has already upgraded to ASE 15, Chen noted, there is an "attractive up-sell opportunity" with all the other options-both the in-memory and Advanced Backup Services option-as well as other options.
For complete details on Sybase's Q4 and full year 2009 results, go here.