Sybase reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010. "We are off to a very good start this year," stated John Chen, chairman, CEO and president of Sybase, during a conference call last week. "We are very pleased to report our 10th consecutive record quarter. The highlights include historical first quarter highs in revenue, operating margin, earnings and cash flow. We also have double digit growth in total revenue as well as license growth and message revenue growth."
Based on Sybase's Q1 performance, Chen said, "I am confident that our strategy and the key growth initiative remain very much on track. We got good feedback from the market about those. Total revenue increased 10% in the quarter versus a year ago, driven by 10% growth in license revenue and 23% growth in messaging revenue. Service revenue grew 5%."
Total revenue for the first quarter of 2010 grew to $294.0 million compared to $267.5 million in the first quarter of 2009. License revenue grew to $98.6 million, compared to $89.3 million in the first quarter of 2009. Services revenue grew to $142.4 million, and messaging revenue grew to $53.0 million in the first quarter of 2010.
"In Q1 our three primary growth engines - the analytics, the mobile middleware and the enterprise messaging - all performed well. The overall database license revenue was up a solid 25% year over year," said Chen. And notably this growth was delivered against Q1 2009, when database growth was up 31%. The Risk Analytics Platform was again the star performer in Q1, he noted. "RAP is demonstrating clear market leadership."
With an attractive market opportunity ahead, Sybase is investing by adding new sales hires focused on analytics, particularly in emerging growth markets, said Chen. In China and India, for example, Sybase plans to double feet-on-the-street over the next 12 months to capitalize on IQ's differentiated technology.
Sybase launched new solutions in the quarter, including the ASE In-Memory Database option, Operator Analytics 365, Mobile CRM for SAP, and Mobile Workflow for SAP, among others.
Sybase's ASE business, including uptake of database options, has performed well. The new ASE In-memory Database option is generating very positive feedback from customers. Benchmark testing indicates customers can achieve measurable improvements in response time and throughput, with minimal to no customization, said Chen.
For more details, go to the Sybase website.