On the eve of its 30th anniversary, SAS today announced that its intelligence strategy, evidenced by increased demand for SAS Enterprise BI Server and industry-specific solutions, led to record sales in 2005. Total revenue grew 10%, from $1.53 billion to $1.68 billion, marking 29 consecutive years of revenue growth and profitability.
"Our customers rely on the SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform to grow profits and improve customer satisfaction," said CEO Jim Goodnight. "With demand for SAS technologies, solutions, and industry expertise never greater, we're better positioned than ever to meet it."
Revenue breakdown
From an industry perspective, solutions for banking continued to lead, growing 10% and generating 28% of industry-specific revenue. Retail-based revenue was up 20%, education 16%, insurance 12% and government 11%. As for horizontal cross-industry business solutions, global sales jumped 24% over 2004 due to gains in the areas of business performance management, HR, IT, marketing automation, and risk.
SAS's revenue showed global balance: 46% came from Americas, 44% from Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), and 10% from Asia/Pacific. The Americas grew by 9%, with 7% growth in the established US market and 17% in Canada. Latin America and the Caribbean grew 42%, highlighted by 86% growth in Mexico and 22% in Brazil.
Overall 11% growth in EMEA was sparked by increases in established markets including SA (33%), Norway (32%), Spain (31%), Austria (26%) and Poland (21%), as well as high growth in an emerging market in Russia (66%). Asia/Pacific grew 15% overall, led by Korea (44%), Singapore (20%), and China - including Hong Kong - (30%), with India's revenue more than doubling.
Focus on customers
"SAS's longevity is a testament to our strong customer relationships," Goodnight said. "We maintain this loyalty by focusing on customer retention and investing 24% of revenues into research and development."
Organisations that licensed SAS software in 2005 included: Barclays Bank PLC, BASF SA, BMW of North America LLC, CitiFinancial International, Colombia Telecomunicaciones SA, Daiichi, France Telecom, Hasselt University, Hema Quebec, The Home Depot, Maxis Communications Berhad, New York City Department of Education, Office Depot International BV, Redcats USA, Samsung Life Insurance, Tel'efonica, Too Inc, and Verizon Communications.
More than 3 400 current SAS customers, recognising the value of their SAS investment, licensed additional software in 2005. SAS's new global Business Intelligence Competency Center programme will help customers make the most of their BI investments by building cohesive strategies.
SAS market position in BI
Several 2005 reports by influential industry analysts recognised SAS's leadership. Specifically, Gartner positioned SAS in the Leaders Quadrant in its "Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q06." Leaders demonstrate breadth and depth of BI platform capabilities and deliver on enterprise wide implementations that support broad BI strategies.
1 SAS was also in the leaders quadrant in Gartner's magic quadrant for Basel II Risk Management Application software.
2 SAS was ranked the BI leader in CIO Insight's 2005 Vendor Value Survey, where 884 IT executives identified top vendors for delivering value and reliability. (Read more about awards and rankings.)
Trends and outlook for 2006
"SAS expects continued strong growth, particularly India, China and Latin America," said Goodnight, "as more organisations take on fact-based decision making. This 'BI for the masses' requires the powerful, consistent platform that only SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform, which includes SAS Data Integration, SAS Storage, SAS Analytics and SAS Business Intelligence, offers. That's our focus for 2006."
Share
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 9 January 2006 by Gartner and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
SAS
SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at 40 000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500 - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organisations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know.
Editorial contacts