The Netherlands, Meppel, March 24, 2000. - AME Research BV, the European Financial ICT Research Company announces its financial results over fiscal 1999. Revenue was € 329,000, an increase of 42% compared to 1998. The operating profit was euro 18,000, an increase of 12.5% over 1998. Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation were 6.3% of revenue.
Net income increased from € 6,763 in 1998 to € 8,570 in 1999, an increase of 26.7%. The company achieved earnings per share of € 0.021 in 1999, compared to € 0.017 in 1998.
The strong increase in revenue was due to fast increasing sales of company analyses, market analyses and investment analyses about the Dutch and European ICT industry within the expanding e-business network of the company. Other products and services such as publications and reports and consulting also performed very well. AME Research investigated in the last year of the past millennium 176 ICT, Internet and e-commerce companies and 57 market segments. AME Research sold over 1200 A4 pages of in depth financial and business information. Internet activities through the virtual ICT Pressroom (www.persberichten.com) and the online business review HTA Online contributed to the revenue as well, in particular through online ordering of reports and publications from the Netherlands and abroad.
Research and development
The company spent a lot of attention to research and development of new products and services. Expenses on development projects for new web sites, database technology and process management amounted to 17% of revenue. These projects have lead to a complete innovation of the ICT Persberichtenbank web portal and the use of an Access database for our report ICT Topscorers in Europe. This report covers mission critical benchmarking and rating information of over 100 European ICT companies and will contain 200 companies in 2000. Based on the report SAP AG was awarded the AME Research Roman Chair Award, an annual prize for the best financial and strategic achievements of a European ICT company.
Organization and education
AME Research invested much energy in streamlining the organization as a networked e-business community while using international standards. Veritas nominated the company in January for an ISO 9002 certification. In 1999, AME Research spent 4.9% of total salary expenses on external education and training courses. This is less than the planned 10%. The offerings in the market for training and education did not very well fit in the needs for training of our employees. They either were too expensive and time consuming or did not address the needed training requirements. In 1999, AME Research introduced an employee share option plan.
Prospects
AME Research figures that in the course of this decade the growth of the Dutch Gross Domestic Product will rely entirely on the fast growth of the ICT-industry and e-commerce. The same development occurs in other European countries. This means an increasing need for examining and analyzing the companies, markets, investments and news in the European ICT and Internet industry. AME Research is set up as a knowledge factory to implement this job for the market. For the current year, the management foresees a further increase of the revenue by 35-40%.
For more information contact:
AME Research BV
Zuideinde 56
7941 GJ Meppel
The Netherlands
T: +31(0)522 256470
F: +31(0)522 241655
E: info@ame.nl