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AUTONOMY CORPORATION PLC ANNOUNCES RESULTS FOR THE FOURTH QUARTER AND TWELVE MONTHS ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2006
Record Annual and Quarterly Results With Highest Revenues and Profits in Autonomy's History; Full Year Revenues up 161% to record $250.7 million; Full Year Profit from Operations (adjusted)* up 275% to record $68.1 million
Autonomy's fourth quarter conference call will be available live at www.autonomy.com on January 25, 2007, at 11:00 a.m. GMT/6:00 a.m. EST/3:00 a.m. PST.
Cambridge, England – January 25, 2007 – Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2006.
Financial Highlights
| Three Months Ended | Year Ended | |||
| (unaudited) | (unaudited) | |||
| Dec. 31, 2006 | Dec. 31, 2005 | Dec. 31, 2006 | Dec. 31, 2005 | |
| Results in US$ ($'000s except per share) | $'000s | $'000s | $'000s | $'000s |
| Revenues | 73,352 | 31,566 | 250,682 | 96,032 |
| Gross profit (adjusted)* | 66,465 | 29,180 | 227,054 | 90,118 |
| Gross profit margin (adjusted)* | 91% | 92% | 91% | 94% |
| Profit from operations (adjusted)* | 24,531 | 7,667 | 68,111 | 18,146 |
| Profit before tax (adjusted)* | 25,279 | 8,792 | 69,148 | 21,943 |
| Net profit (adjusted)* | 18,392 | 7,033 | 47,919 | 15,552 |
| Gross profit (IFRS) | 64,547 | 28,376 | 219,093 | 88,527 |
| Gross profit margin (IFRS) | 88% | 90% | 87% | 92% |
| Profit from operations (IFRS) | 21,301 | 634 | 55,540 | 8,831 |
| Profit before tax (IFRS) | 21,791 | 1,759 | 56,319 | 12,628 |
| Net profit (IFRS) | 15,854 | 1,407 | 39,085 | 8,950 |
| EPS | ||||
| - basic (adjusted)* | 0.10 | 0.05 | 0.26 | 0.12 |
| - diluted (adjusted)* | 0.10 | 0.05 | 0.26 | 0.12 |
| - basic (IFRS) | 0.08 | 0.01 | 0.21 | 0.07 |
| - diluted (IFRS) | 0.08 | 0.01 | 0.21 | 0.07 |
* Adjusted results exclude post-acquisition restructuring costs, fair value adjustments on investments, loss on disposal of investments, share of loss of associates and non-cash charges, namely, the amortization of purchased intangibles, share-based compensation and non-cash translational foreign exchange gains and losses and associated tax effects. See reconciliations on page 6.
Full Year 2006 Highlights
- Record revenues, up 161%, with strong organic growth and full year impact of acquisitions
- Record profit from operations (adjusted) at $68.1 million, up 275% from 2005
- Record profit before tax (adjusted) at $69.1 million, up 215% from 2005
- Profit from operations (IFRS) up 529% from 2005
- Fully-diluted EPS (adjusted) up 116% from 2005
- Operational gearing sees operating margins (adjusted) up 44%
- Net profit (IFRS) up 337% from 2005
- R&D investment up 134% year-on-year
- Gross margins (adjusted) remain high at 91%
- Cemented Autonomy's position as the industry leader
- Launched IDOL-based K2-7, further extending the adoption of Autonomy's IDOL infrastructure, with strong upsell into historic Verity customer base and continued commitment to protecting customers' investments in the IDOL-based K2 product line while extending with performance and scalability improvements and access to over 500 advanced features
- Received outstanding achievement award from the London Stock Exchange
- Chosen as preferred vendor by Wipro
- China venture reinforced its position as the world's leading Chinese-language video site
- Strong positive cash flow in 2006, generating $46.9m of cash from operations (2005: $17.7m)
- Weakening US dollar had a minimal effect on revenue in year
- Cash balance of $121.1 million at year end and no net debt
Fourth Quarter 2006 Highlights
- Record quarterly revenue, up 132% from Q4 2005
- Record operating margins (adjusted) at 33% up from 24% in Q4 2005
- Record profit from operations (adjusted) up 220% from Q4 2005
- Record quarterly profit before tax (adjusted), up 188% Q4 2005
- R&D investment up 72% year-on-year
- Twenty-eighth consecutive quarter of profitability
- Gross margins (adj) at 91%
- Blue chip fourth quarter wins include Devon Energy, Energy Systems, Emirates Airline, China Mobile, Banco de Mexico, Bloomberg, GM, Union Pacific, GE, Ericsson and AOL, as well as multiple government, defence and intelligence agencies around the globe including in the U.S., France, China, Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, the U.K., Spain and Canada
- Weakening US dollar had a minimal effect on revenue in quarter
- Average selling price significantly higher at $380,000 (Q3 2006: $360,000)
- Record seven deals greater than $1m recognized in the quarter
Commenting on the results, Dr. Mike Lynch, Group CEO of Autonomy said today: "2006 has been an extraordinary year for Autonomy by every measure, with record revenue and profit growth driven by our 2005 acquisitions and strong organic growth. Our Q4 2006 and full year results broke all company records. Top line revenues, operating profits, bottom line profit before tax and EPS are all up significantly with strong organic growth, all achieved during a year in which Autonomy integrated major corporate transactions. The combination of strong organic revenue growth and operational gearing, achieved through our indirect sales model, resulted in continued growth in operating margins and bottom line profitability, whilst R&D investment continued apace, up 134% in the year. Throughout 2006 we maintained our position, according to analysts, as ‘the clear leader in enterprise search' and firmly established our leadership in meaning based computing, resulting in record demand for our offerings."
Dr. Lynch concluded: "2006 was a transformational year for our markets and Autonomy, with unstructured information reaching ‘prime time' status across the globe. Throughout the year leading organizations such as Bloomberg, HP and GSK have made the decision to standardize on Autonomy for the automated handling of unstructured information, recognizing the limitations of manual legacy keyword-based solutions. We are looking forward to 2007 with great excitement and continued confidence in our long-term outlook."
Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2006 Financial Highlights
Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2006 totalled $73.4 million, up 132% from $31.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2005 as a result of significantly increased activity rates deriving from organic growth and the integration of acquisitions completed during 2005. Of total revenues, Americas revenues of $45.2 million were 62% and Rest of World revenues of $28.2 million were 38% in the fourth quarter of 2006. Revenues for the year ended December 31, 2006, totalled $250.7 million up 161% from $96.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2005.
Gross profits (adjusted) for the fourth quarter of 2006 were $66.5 million, up 128% from $29.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. Gross margins (adjusted) were 91% in the fourth quarter of 2006, versus 92% in the fourth quarter 2005. Gross profits (IFRS) for the fourth quarter of 2006 were $64.5 million, up 127% from $28.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. Gross margins (IFRS) for the fourth quarter of 2006 were 88%, compared to 90% in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Gross profits (adjusted) for the year ended December 31, 2006, were $227.1 million, up 152% from $90.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2005. Gross margins (adjusted) were 91% in the year ended December 31, 2006, compared to 94% for the year ended December 31, 2005. Gross profits (IFRS) for the year ended December 31, 2006, were $219.1 million, up 147% from $88.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2005. Gross margins (IFRS) were 87% for the year ended December 31, 2006, compared to 92% for the year ended December 31, 2005.
Net profit (adjusted) for the fourth quarter of 2006 was $18.4 million, or $0.10 diluted share, compared to net profit (adjusted) of $7.0 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2005. Net profit (IFRS) for the fourth quarter of 2006 was $15.9 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, compared to net profit (IFRS) of $1.4 million, or $0.01 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2005. Net profit (IFRS) for the fourth quarter of 2005 includes a one-time restructuring charge of $5.0 million in connection with the acquisition of Verity.
Net profit (adjusted) for the year ended December 31, 2006, was $47.9 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, compared to net profit (adjusted) of $15.6 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, for the year ended December 31, 2005. Net profit (IFRS) for the year ended December 31, 2006, was $39.1 million, or $0.21 per diluted share, compared to net profit (IFRS) of $9.0 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, for the year ended December 31, 2005. Net profit (IFRS) for the year ended December 31, 2005 includes one-time restructuring charges totalling $5.8 million in connection with the acquisitions of Verity and etalk.
Cash balances were $121.1 million at December 31, 2006, an increase of $14.1 million from the prior quarter, and an increase of $52.5 million for the full year, with strong cash generation from operations and proceeds from exercise of share options. As of December 31, 2006, Autonomy had no net debt.
During 2006 Autonomy did not purchase any shares for cancellation. In total, Autonomy has purchased for cancellation 20,997,824 million shares at an average price of £1.65 per share.
Trade receivables as at December 31, 2006 were $77.3 million, compared to $55.4 million at December 31, 2005. Deferred revenues were $52.5 million at December 31, 2006, compared with $51.9 million at December 31, 2005.
Although IFRS disclosure provides investors and management with an overall view of Autonomy's financial performance, Autonomy believes that it is important for investors to also understand the performance of Autonomy's core business, such as the sale of its software products and services and operating profits without giving effect to certain specific, often non-recurring and non-cash charges. Consequently, the non-IFRS (adjusted) results exclude post-acquisition restructuring costs, loss on disposal, fair value adjustments of investments, share of loss of associates and non-cash charges for the amortization of purchased intangibles, share-based compensation and translational foreign exchange gains and losses and associated tax effects. Management uses the adjusted results to assess the financial performance of Autonomy's core business.
Q4 Product Sales
Autonomy's infrastructure technology has been adopted by enterprises to process information across all internal and external data formats and sources. During the fourth quarter of 2006, major new wins included: Devon Energy, Energy Systems, Borealis, Amadeus, Emirates Airline, China Mobile and Banco de Mexico. Repeat business from existing customers accounted for approximately 49% of revenue for the quarter, and included Bloomberg, GM, Union Pacific, GE, Ericsson, MTV, Exxon, Philip Morris, Alcatel, Turkcell and AOL. Q4 2006 business also included new and repeat licenses with multiple government, defence and intelligence agencies around the globe including in the U.S., France, China, Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, the U.K., Spain and Canada.
Strategic Partnerships and OEMs
Autonomy's OEM Program continued to grow during the year. Agreements were signed with 14 customers during the quarter, including new and extended agreements with HP, MatrixOne and OpenWave, and significant agreements during the year with companies such as Oracle and EMC.
Q4 Corporate Developments
During the fourth quarter of 2006 Autonomy continued to extend its market leadership with the introduction of key new and upgraded technologies. During Q4 2006 Autonomy announced the next generation of enterprise search, with the introduction of Intelligent Ant technology. This new search paradigm is the latest enhancement to the company's leading edge infrastructure platform. By complementing traditional spidering techniques with Intelligent Ant technology, Autonomy is significantly enhancing the quality and relevance of searches within the enterprise, enabling customers to receive real-time results from business applications and from dynamic data sources. Autonomy also announced significant advancement of its Chinese consumer internet venture. Autonomy's Chinese venture has rapidly expanded and established itself as the world's leading Chinese language video search service. Finally, during Q4 2006 Autonomy announced a new release of its KeyView™ Software Development Kits (SDKs) version 10.0, which includes new and enhanced export, viewing and filtering capabilities that allow third-party applications to more effectively manage, evaluate and take action on high-value content.
During Q4 2006 Autonomy's Aungate division announced that Bloomberg has chosen Autonomy's core IDOL technology and its Aungate Real-Time Governance solutions to power and integrate with a number of the messaging and compliance services on the BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL® service. Aungate also announced a world first in automating processes that guide employees to meet behavior policies and enforce compliance, with the introduction of the Aungate Compliance Guidance and Enforcement Module. The new module performs real-time conceptual analyses of enterprise information repositories. Aungate also announced new releases of its Aungate Electronic Document Discovery and Real-Time Monitoring solutions, the most scalable solutions available in the market today to help organizations reduce the costs and risks associated with information.
Autonomy's etalk division, a leading provider of contact center recording and analytics solutions, announced during Q4 2006 that they had received the highest overall customer satisfaction rating in a recent independent customer satisfaction survey of eight vendors in the call recording market. etalk also announced that its Qfiniti Assist has been named Best of Show at this year's Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE) held in Seattle.
Finally, Autonomy's Cardiff division announced the availability of Expert Recommendation for Intelligent Documents, understanding the meaning of an on-screen business document based on the concepts it contains, the person interacting with the document and the environmental context.
During the fourth quarter Autonomy was recognized in multiple ways for its market leadership and unmatched technology. Autonomy was once again positioned by independent research firm Gartner, Inc. in the leader quadrant of Gartner's 2006 Information Access Technology Magic Quadrant report. Autonomy was also acknowledged for the fourth year in a row as one of the EContent 100, a list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry. Additional awards during the quarter included:
- Achievement of the Year Award 2006 at the London Stock Exchange's techMARK Awards for the success of its acquisition of Verity;
- The "Best of Government Solution Summit" Award at the Government Solution Summit;
- Best Innovation in Knowledge Management category at the International Information Industry Awards 2006 for Autonomy customer Arup;
- The Best User Experience award at the International Information Industry Awards for Autonomy customer The National Archives; and
- Best Online Classified Section at the Newspaper Society Awards for Autonomy customer Johnston Press.
Throughout 2006 Autonomy was recognized by industry analysts as the unmatched market leader. Accolades included:
- "The clear leader in enterprise search is Autonomy." – Sue Feldman of IDC, Investor's Business Daily, June 27, 2006
- "Autonomy leads in security, capabilities breadth, and corporate strategy. … IDOL is the most complete, integrated platform." - Forrester 2006
- "[Autonomy's] vision and execution status is founded on sound financials, a strong and growing customer list, and a vigorous vision for the burgeoning role of information access." - Gartner 2006
- "Autonomy eclipses its next closest competitor" - Forrester 2006
About Autonomy Corporation plc
Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L) is a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise and is spearheading the meaning-based computing movement. Autonomy's technology forms a conceptual and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data including unstructured information, be it text, email, voice or video. Autonomy's software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise applications including information access technology, BI, CRM, KM, call center solutions, rich media management, compliance and litigation solutions and security applications, and is recognized by industry analysts as the clear leader in enterprise search.
Autonomy's customer base comprises more than 16,000 global companies and organizations including BAE Systems, Boeing, Ford, Daimler Chrysler, Shell, AOL, BBC, Reuters, Hutchison 3G, Ericsson, T-Mobile, Philips, Coca Cola, Kraft Foods, Nestle, Lloyds TSB, GlaxoSmithKline, KPMG, Citigroup, ABN AMRO, Deutsche Bank, Nomura, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Stock Exchange, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy. Autonomy has over 300 OEM partners and more than 350 VARs and Integrators, numbering among them leading companies such as BEA, Business Objects, Citrix, EDS, IBM Global Services, Novell, Veritas, Vignette, Tibco, Stellent and Sybase. The company has offices worldwide.
The Autonomy Group's divisions include: Aungate, specialist in Real-Time Enterprise Governance; Virage, a visionary in Rich Media Management and Security and Surveillance technology; etalk, award-winning provider of enterprise-class contact center products; Cardiff, a leader in content capture and business process management solutions.
Autonomy and the Autonomy logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autonomy Corporation plc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
| Financial Media Contacts: | Analyst and Investor Contacts: |
|
Edward Bridges / Haya Chelhot Financial Dynamics +44 (0)20 7831 3113 |
Sushovan Hussain, Chief Financial Officer Autonomy Corporation plc +44 (0)1223 448 000 |
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