For the fourth quarter ending December 21, 2003, the Pleasanton, California-based enterprise applications company achieved net income of $17.4m on revenue of $685m.
The revenue figure, which included the JD Edwards contribution, was a record for the company and came in above PeopleSoft’s guidance of $625m to $640m.
Net profit plummeted 70% on the year ago figure; however the Q4 included charges for purchase accounting adjustments relating to the acquisition of JD Edwards. Excluding one-time costs, net income would have been $112m.
License revenue, the all important measure of success, rose by 29% to $185.4m and the average selling price increased by 11% to $477,000.
In some respects PeopleSoft seems to have fared better than SAP, which was negatively impacted by currency conversion rates.
When the effects were neutralized, SAP demonstrated a 3.5% lift in income and a 4% rise in revenue for Q4. That said, PeopleSoft’s figures are not directly comparable, having been boosted by the JD Edwards acquisition, which was a $206m company with $47m in license revenue during the quarter ending January 31, 2003.
The only murky aspects of PeopleSoft’s results concern its forecast for Q1 2004 as it predicts revenue of $625m to $635m with license revenue of $130m to $140m. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call are currently expecting sales of $646m.
Charles Di Bona, analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York is reported as saying that they didn’t see ‘normal’ seasonal upside in the fourth quarter for an applications-software company, but they’re taking the downside seasonality of the first quarter. I see nothing in what they reported to change me from my opinion that the fourth quarter was fine, and that 2004 is the problem.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
