SAS, the leader in business intelligence (BI), announced recently record revenue growth driven by demand for industry-specific and packaged solutions for the 30th year running. In the MEA region, SAS has experienced double digit growth, mainly in banking, telco and public sectors. SAS®9 and SAS Intelligence Industry solutions have been the key drivers of this growth. SAS®9 is a single, scalable platform providing a consistent, rewarding user experience. It offers integrated data management and predictive analytic capabilities that tell an organization not just where it has been, but where it should go next
“We’re proud of our achievements in this region, and confident in our industry-focused Business Intelligence solutions that deliver on a comprehensive strategy for identifying and surfacing the information that makes Enterprise Businesses achieve success and we are bullish about our future,” said Basel Tutunji, Regional Manager, Middle East, SAS. “Over the last year we’ve achieved double digit growth and we are confident that this will continue from strength to strength going into the future.”
Total global revenue in 2006 was US$1.9 billion, up 12 percent over US$1.7 billion in 2005, SAS announced. New software license revenue increased 20 percent, nearly twice the growth rate expected in the market this year.
“This year’s strong financial results validate the new course we set for the company several years ago when we began investing heavily in business and industry-focused applications built on an enterprise intelligence platform,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. “We had a good year. Industry and packaged business solutions were up 49 percent over 2005. One of our core strengths, powerful predictive analytics, continued to represent a significant stream of revenue at 19 percent growth. Sales of business intelligence and data integration/warehousing were each up by nearly 50 percent, demonstrating the importance of an integrated intelligence portfolio.”
In its most recent business intelligence report1, analyst firm IDC wrote that "in the short term, IDC does not see any serious challenge to SAS' dominance of the advanced analytics market and expects the company to continue to experience above-market growth rates for query, reporting, and analysis. However, at the same time there is likely going to be a long-term, continuous shift toward more packaged analytic applications."
Dan Vesset, Research Director, Business Analytics, IDC, said: "Given SAS' latest financial performance announcement, it is clear that the shift toward packaged analytic applications has benefited the company faster than we expected. Over the recent years, SAS has transformed itself from a company known primarily for its advanced analytics tools to a provider of a broad portfolio of packaged analytic applications that incorporate the company's advanced analytics, query and reporting and data management expertise as well as industry and process-specific content."
INDUSTRY, CROSS-INDUSTRY SOLUTION SALES INCREASE
SAS saw strong increases in key vertical markets. The retail-based sector grew 18 percent as retailers continue to recognize the competitive advantage they gain from applications such as forecasting and optimization. Revenue from financial services jumped 17 percent, demonstrating strong growth in risk management and SAS' dominance as a provider of Basel II compliance software.
In the public sector, where fraud detection solutions drove increases, revenue rose 10 percent. Cross-industry business solutions saw total gains of 45 percent because of high demand for marketing automation, performance management, and risk and IT management software.
GLOBAL BREAKDOWN
As in 2005, SAS’ 2006 results remained globally balanced. The Americas accounted for 45 percent of total revenue; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) 45 percent; and Asia Pacific 10 percent.
More than 1,300 customers were new to SAS in 2006. Among them are AllianceBank, Ambank, Citi Info, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., Google Inc., Hanaro Telecom, HSBC Bank Canada, Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Macys.com, National Stock Exchange of India, Netflix, Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., Texas Instruments France and UTI Bank.
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ABOUT SAS
SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW
