JSE-listed Spescom Limited today released a trading statement advising shareholders that it may incur a headline loss in the region of R10 million to R14 million.
This is compared to headline earnings of R20.6 million for the same period last year.
According to Spescom's CEO, Tony Farah, the expected poor results can be attributed specifically to the unpredictability of the telecommunications market both locally and internationally.
"Telecoms business is fragmented by nature with trading heavily reliant on large deals with a small customer base.
"Locally, the impact of deregulation announcements still remains largely unknown, particularly with respect to the second network operator," says Farah.
He adds that Spescom has experienced deferment of final execution dates for current long-term contracts as well as delays in the awarding of new business, all of which have contributed to the volatile nature of the sector.
"Spescom remains strategically focused on enterprise content management (ECM) and in this regard we have invested significant capital in the development of our proprietary products and marketing activities in this area."
Farah notes that this trading statement is being made early in the first half in compliance with JSE listings requirements but emphasises that circumstances may well improve before the anticipated May 2005 release of Spescom's interim financial results.
"The board remains confident that the results for the second half year, ending 30 September 2005, will show a distinct improvement."
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Spescom is a multinational technology innovator with direct operations in the US, UK and SA.
The group is publicly listed on the JSE Securities Exchange SA (Spescom Ltd), and on the NASDAQ OTCBB : SPCO (Spescom Software Inc).
Spescom addresses the information and communications technology market providing both products and solutions to connect to the network economy, as well as enterprise software to manage information and knowledge.
Specifically, Spescom provides solutions in the areas of access network; enterprise information management; multimedia transaction recording; broadcast; customer contact centres; and test and measurement.
Spescom markets its products worldwide through appointed partners and distributors under the eB brand for its enterprise software, and the DataVoice brand for its multimedia transaction recording solutions.
eB is sold internationally by US-based Spescom Software Inc.
Spescom's global customer base consists of multinational organisations including leading enterprises in the utilities, telecommunications, transportation, financial, banking and insurance sectors.
Worldwide, customers include Siemens, British Telecoms, Network Rail (formerly Railtrack), Lloyds of London, Barclays Bank, Abbey National Bank, WH Smith, Caterpillar, Bechtel, AmerenUE, Entergy, Bombardier, Ocean Energy, Sempra Energy, Telkom, SABC, Old Mutual, Eskom, Transnet and First National Bank.
For more information on Spescom, please visit www.spescomsoftware.com and www.spescom.com.
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