Lame duck chief executive Guy Berruyer said the organic revenue growth was driven by Sage's move away from depending on software license sales. "Our customers are responding positively to our subscription offerings," he says. In product performance, X3 was clearly a disappointment as Sage said a sagging French market held down overall X3 growth to 7 percent but it grew 22 percent organically outside of its home country. The Americas had organic growth of 6 percent and CFO Steve Hare pointed to strong performance of Sage 50, which was not quantified. Maintenance and support contracts remain important, although Hare indicated Sage has gone to about the limits in getting American customers on premium support. Hare said Sage will be targeting off-plan customers. Growth in payments products continued with the number of customers at 15,200, an increase of 15 percent over a year ago as Sage emphasizes selling these products to accounting customers. Within the Americas, revenue for Sage Payment Solutions was up 6 percent and Sage Business Solutions, which encompasses the accounting products, was up 5 percent. Sage did not report revenue numbers for its regions.
SAGE FIRST HALF REBOUNDS Featured
The Sage Group reported a before tax profit of about $278 million for the first half ended March 31. The compares to a loss of about $13.5 million for the first half of fiscal 2013. And in general everyone on the Sage earnings webcast this week sounded happy. Revenue hit roughly $1.1 billion. That was up 4.9 percent organically, but down 7 percent in historical terms. The company says the drop reflects the disposal products in March and April 2103. That would include SalesLogix, Act and the product now known as Abila MIP.
