Citrix targets 20% growth in Asia
By Irene Tham, Singapore.CNET.com
Friday, March 30 2001 4:41:18 PM
SINGAPORE--US-based Citrix Systems Inc expects sales in Asia Pacific (including Japan) to grow 20 percent this year to US$28.2 million.
The Florida-based company specializes in solutions that give employees access to their companies' Windows, UNIX and Java-based applications from any device over the Internet. Its flagship products are Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) and MetaFrame.
Despite the slowdown in the Asian economy, Citrix Systems Asia Pacific managing director Nabeel Youakim believes that the 20 percent growth is achievable as "our software becomes more appropriate in tough times."
"Many large companies have headquarters and branches in Asia Pacific. To control IT maintenance costs, they need to adopt a centralized approach to serve applications to employees (in the region)," Youakim said in a telephone interview.
By doing this, companies can expect average IT cost savings of 50 to 60 percent, he noted.
In addition, Citrix's technology addresses bandwidth constraints experienced by Internet users in Asia Pacific, particularly in India, Youakim said.
He claimed that users do not need leased lines or broadband connections, as the maximum bandwidth required to run business applications is 22kbps.
Asia Pacific contributed 5 percent or US$23.5 million to Citrix's total revenues for the year ended December 2000, Youakim noted.
Total net revenues was US$470.4 million, up 17 percent from US$403.3 million in 1999. Net income declined 19 percent to US$94.5 million from US$116.9 million in 1999.
Customers in the region include Singapore Technologies, Citibank, JP Morgan, Cable & Wireless Optus, Seagate, Motorola, National Semiconductor and Pacific Century CyberWorks, he said.
Worldwide, customers include AT&T Wireless Services, First Union Bank, Aventis and France Telecom.
ICA is also being licensed by Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Sharp, Nokia and Ericsson for inclusion in their software/hardware products and mobile devices.
Last Wednesday, the company said it acquired Sequoia Software Corp for US$184.6 million cash, to add the latter's extensible markup language (XML)-based software to Citrix's existing product line.
Citrix was last trade on the Nasdaq at US$20.25, down US$0.75.
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