BUSINESS
Baltimore revenues triple in Q4
21-02-2001
by
Baltimore Technologies, the Internet security provider, has turned in remarkable figures for the fourth quarter of 2000 and the year as a whole.
And the future looks bright also with the confirmation of two major acquisitions and new deals with Microsoft and with NTT Docomo of Japan for desktop computer and mobile phone security respectively.
The Irish-owned e-security firm saw total revenues for the final quarter increase by 301 percent to USD42.5 million over the 1999 returns. All-important software licence revenues for Q4 went up by 63 percent to USD25.1 million while gross margin rose by 72 percent.
However, Baltimore still reported a loss of USD13 million although this improved as a percentage of revenue from 34.6 percent in Q3 to 30.66 percent. The company said this reflected planned investment in sales and marketing of USD29.9million and Research and Development of USD6.7 million.
Baltimore confirmed the acquisition of Content Technologies Ltd for USD767.7 million and Nevex Software Technologies for USD23.8 million. Both acquisitions broadened Baltimore's security software offerings.
Annual revenues increased by 219 percent to USD110.9 million with licence revenues up by 347 percent to USD60.2 million. Gross margin increased to 68 percent while losses rose to USD37.9 million. Losses as a percentage of revenue improved from 86 percent to 34 percent.
Baltimore said it now has a global market presence in 38 cities in 17 countries with 1,185 employees up from 22 cities with 480 employees in 1999.
CEO Fran Rooney said he was very pleased with the results which showed a tripling of revenue over the previous year. He added that over 50 percent of revenues now come from outside Europe.
He confirmed that new agreements had been signed with the giant Microsoft and with Japan's NTT and said these were "significant deals" for Baltimore.
Q4 revenues demonstrated the company's ability in the traditional PKI market, he said, adding that through acquisition, Baltimore had expanded product offering to include the additional high growth areas of content security and access control.
"As a result we now have access to a market which is forecast to exceed USD6 billion by 2005," Rooney stated.
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