Aspect Development Delivers Record Revenues in 3rd Quarter
Revenues climb to $26 million with strong expansion in order activity
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspect Development, Inc.
(Nasdaq: ASDV) today announced results for the third quarter ended
September 30, 1999, reporting record revenues of $26,016,000 -- an increase of
14% over the $22,824,000 revenue recorded in the year ago quarter, and a
23% increase over the prior quarter. Net income was up by more than
$2 million over the prior quarter to $2,687,000. Diluted earnings per share
for the third quarter totaled $0.08, compared to $0.13 for the third quarter a
year ago, and an increase of seven cents from $.01 in Q2 1999. Operating
income for the third quarter of this year was $2,488,000, and gross profit
grew to 83.4% compared to 82.5% from the prior quarter.
"We're very pleased with the progress we made in the quarter," said Aspect
chairman and CEO Romesh Wadhwani. "Orders were strong, including three deals
of over $5 million. The sales pipeline increased. We strengthened the sales
leadership in North America and Europe and expanded the sales organization.
We formed partnerships with Ariba and i2. We expanded our market leadership
position while accelerating our transformation to the leading provider of
Internet solutions for the inbound supply chain. These strong results are a
testament to the increasing demand for our solutions and our approach to
helping our customers increase shareholder value."
Aspect Accelerates Growth in its eCSM and eProcurement Businesses
Aspect signed thirteen orders for inbound supply chain management
solutions during the quarter, including major enterprise orders of over
$5 million each from Avnet, Cooper Industries, and Ford for Aspect's
Web-centric decision support solutions for design, procurement and operations.
Other major customers included Alenia Marconi, Zollner, Hitachi, Hughes Space,
MSL, and IBM. The company continued to expand its market by selling its eCSM
solutions to optimize product-related design and procurement, as well as
eProcurement solutions to optimize operations and procurement for indirect/MRO
goods and supplies. Aspect eContent subscriptions and maintenance sold in
conjunction with Aspect solutions generated record revenues in the quarter,
growing to more than $6 million.
The Company sold solutions across all its major industry markets,
including High Tech , Automotive, Industrial, Aerospace & Defense, and Process
& Services. Nine percent of total revenue for the third quarter came from
sales outside North America, including orders from new customers such as
Zollner and Alenia Marconi in Europe and existing customers such as Hitachi in
Japan.
Initial Results from Aspect's B-to-B eMarkets Business
As part of its accelerating transformation into the leading provider of
Internet solutions for the Inbound Supply Chain, Aspect is establishing an
eMarkets business to provide the content-driven infrastructure for B-to-B
eCommerce portals and marketplaces. In Q3, NECX became a major customer of
this new Aspect business, signing a multi-million dollar five year agreement.
The NECX Global Electronics Exchange, a leading open market distributor, will
be using Aspect content and software as the infrastructure for its electronic
component eCommerce catalog. Aspect is also providing the content and
software infrastructure for ChipCenter, a leading spot-buying portal for
electronic components and an Aspect joint venture with CMP Publications, Avnet
and Arrow Electronics.
Aspect Expands Partnership Reach
As announced last week, Aspect has signed a strategic partnership with i2
Technologies, Inc., the leader in Intelligent eBusiness solutions, to jointly
sell an integrated solution for Product Life Cycle Management. Both companies
will sell the solution to customers, which enables companies to tie inbound
supply chain management solutions from Aspect that optimize design and
procurement to complementary supply chain solutions from i2 that optimize
planning and delivery of those products to customers.
"Product development organizations have long suffered from the lack of
robust, high-level product lifecycle planning and optimization solutions,"
said Dave Burdick, vice president, research at Gartner Group. "Most have been
forced to rely on a hodgepodge of incompatible and dysfunctional applications
to plan, monitor and manage end-to-end product development. The market is
crying out for a credible and viable solution to this problem."
This partnership provides another channel for Aspect products, in addition
to the partnerships already in place with SAP and Ariba.
Greater Organizational Capability
Aspect filled out its senior global sales organization in the quarter,
adding a number of new executives to focus on growing business in its key
vertical markets. Aspect grew its commissioned sales force by 33% with a
headcount increase of fourteen over the prior quarter, and opened new sales
offices in key markets.
"We continued to make progress in Q3 in building a sales organization that
is capable of building, selling and delivering our new, web-based solutions to
companies in all major industries worldwide," said Bob Evans, Aspect president
and COO. "We set a year-end sales force headcount target of 60 sales and
account managers, and we nearly accomplished that goal in Q3. We are
systematically putting in place the people and business processes to take
Aspect's performance to the next level." |
