Hosting and managed service provider WebCentral announced its half yearly results today and its managed services and SaaS offerings are producing stella results.
The company’s rich media content management business, FTR (For The Record), which supplies court recording type services largely to the US market, didn’t look as healthy as it did the prior half which was buoyed by a $7 million contract from the US Social Security Administration. However, the FTR has some contracts in place, which are not yet reportable says the company and which the Group says will assure futer results.
Overall the Group’s revenue increased 4 per cent to $29.8m and net profit after tax of $1.3m for the half year to 31 December 2005. This compares with revenue of $28.7m in the previous corresponding period and net profit of $1.7m.
In particular, the Group’s web and application hosting business achieved good growth for the half
reporting an 11 per cent increase in revenue to $22.9m and a 15 per cent increase in earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to $2.5m from $2.2m in the previous corresponding period.
Taking a closer look at the figures, the managed hosting business achieved a 31 per cent increase with the company signing “a number of new, long term managed services contracts with corporate clients including a major sporting body, a mobile phone selection service, a global videoconferencing company and a national art union”.
The real winner for the future could be Software as a Service (SaaS) which reported a telling 72 per cent increase in revenues growing from $1.1m in the previous corresponding period to $1.9m by the end of last year.
The company says the ASP model has “experienced a dynamic resurgence in the past 18 months, boosted by the growing range of quality business applications available via the internet as well as improved access to affordable broadband.
The ASP division accounts for more than 20 per cent of the company’s data usage and it reports that actual customer numbers have grown significantly in the past six months.
The Managed Exchange premium email offering grew by 112 per cent in the past 12 months and the company now manages almost 8,500 mailboxes.