Revenue growth remains strong, up 22% sequentially and increasing 198% year-over-year
Average contract size during the quarter increases 34% sequentially to $437,000
Ongoing OEM royalties up 84% at $448,000 from the third quarter of $244,000
Margins remain high for the fourth quarter – gross profit margins increase to 96% from 95% in Q3 and operating margins remain strong at 28%
U.S. represents 44% of revenue for the fourth quarter
OEM channel strategy ahead of corporate expectations with new, high profile relationships signed in the fourth quarter of 2000, including Business Objects, E.piphany, Appropria, Portal Wave and iManage. Other OEM customers signed during the year include Sybase, Vignette, Novient, Evolve and Brio.
Continued growth of blue chip client base throughout the year, including significant Q4 customers such as, ABN Amro, Royal SunAlliance, Philips, Fireman’s Fund, Hill & Knowlton, Qwest Communications, United States Department of Energy, Nestle UK Ltd and Blue Martini
Autonomy’s Voice Suite delivered in the first commercial setting at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
Successful listing on the London Stock Exchange (November 2000)
Balance sheet remains strong with $137 million in cash at year end
Autonomy today announces a major new technology component that creates an intelligent XML environment, see separate release
During 2000, Autonomy successfully established itself as the standard in providing the fundamental infrastructure for automating the management and delivery of unstructured information. With more than 425 customers, ranging from major governments to many of the leading Fortune 500 companies, Autonomy’s blue chip client list is global, diversified and growing. Specifically, during the fourth quarter we signed agreements with industry leaders including Philips, Sonera, Royal & SunAlliance, Fireman’s Fund and General Electric. We also continued to execute on our indirect sales strategy by signing agreements with OEM and reseller partners including IBM Global Services, SAIC, Logicon, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Triple P, Business Objects, iManage and Portal Wave.
At the heart of our success is the value proposition we bring to our clients. We enable enterprises to operate more efficiently, while providing our OEM and indirect channel partners with a solution to a fundamental problem – making sense and use of unstructured information. Further, the applicability of our technology continues to grow, as evidenced by the successful fourth quarter launch of Commerce Application Builder, which provides a technology solution addressing the management of e-commerce content, our announcement of peer-to-peer implementation of our technology, the first commercial deployment of our voice technology and the fact that we now support both WAP protocol and NTT DoCoMo i-Mode.
Perhaps most importantly, our fourth quarter and year-end results highlight our profitable and scalable business model. Marked by consistently high gross margins and increasing profitability, top-line revenues increased three-fold in 2000, fueled by growth in Europe, the U.S. and Asia, while total headcount increased by only 37% to 179. In addition, while still early in its growth curve, our OEM royalty revenues continue to grow, providing a recurring high-margin revenue stream, which further enhanced our profitability. Finally, our balance sheet is strong, with over $137 million in cash at year-end, which leaves us well-placed to expand upon our leadership position and to penetrate new and existing market.
