posted on 8/2/2011 2:17:53 PM
The maker of business intelligence software records a 45% jump in sales and offers no apologies for a net loss in the second quarter, saying the BI market opportunity demands investment.
With just over a year as a public company under its belt, business intelligence software provider QlikTech rode strong demand for BI software to gaudy revenue growth in the second quarter, all as it expanded its sales team to seek more customers.
QlikTech, maker of QlikView business intelligence software, reported second-quarter numbers late last week, boasting a 45% jump in revenue to $74 million. Bulking up its sales force to serve the demand for BI software contributed to significantly higher expenses for the company, which reported a loss of $2.2 million in the quarter.
The BI provider, which was founded in 1993, has enjoyed a surge of customers so far in 2011, ending Q2 with 21,000 worldwide, compared with 15,000 a year earlier. Head count was also up by 84 employees, to nearly 1,000 at the half-year mark. At the end of 2009, QlikTech had just 574 people on its payroll.
The growth may not surprise market watchers who have charted BI’s strong growth in recent years.
"2010 was a solid year for the BI tools market, and our models indicate that growth will continue throughout the five-year forecast period," said IDC’s Dan Vesset in a statement accompanying the analyst firm’s BI outlook report earlier this year. "Business analytics remains one of the top priorities for most organizations, and BI tools are one of the key enabling technologies for more pervasive business analytics.”
For its part, QlikTech has kept its maintenance renewal rates, a barometer of customer satisfaction, above 85%. In the second quarter, revenue from maintenance sales rose nearly 62% to $21.8 million, the company revealed. QlikTech rolled out the latest version of its software, QlikView 10, in the fall of 2010.
Contracts for the QlikView business intelligence software are growing not just in number but in size, officials told analysts on a conference call to announce the quarterly results. QlikTech signed 104 deals in which the cost of the software license and first-year maintenance exceeded $100,000, CFO Bill Sorenson said. A year ago, the company signed just 61 deals of that size.
Even so, the favorable deal size and revenue expansion couldn’t save QlikTech from spilling red ink. Sorenson and CEO Lars Björk said the bottom line suffered because the company increased hiring, partner training, sales and marketing expenses, R&D activity, and other factors.
“Near term, what we’ve been focused on is pushing that top line,” Sorenson told an analyst curious about the bottom-line results. “We will continue to hire to meet the global opportunity that we see.”
Björk echoed the theme of seizing the moment in the business intelligence market. “There’s an increasing demand for end–user-driven, business–user-driven BI,” he said. “That need is likely not going to drop. It’s probably going to increase.”
For readers interested in learning more about the business intelligence market, the TechMATCH Business Intelligence Buyer’s Guide offers objective guidance on how companies should approach a BI investment, as well as detailed information on which products meet specific business needs.