Number one European anti-virus developer sees 25% profit growth
in 2001/2
Sophos, a world leader in corporate anti-virus protection, today
announced financial results for the year ended 31st March 2002.
Highlights:
- Turnover increased 40% to £31.6 million, from £22.6 million the
previous year
- Profit before tax grew 25% to £9.8 million (2001: £7.8
million)
Analyst group IDC expects the anti-virus market as a whole to
grow at 15.3 percent annually between 2001 and 2006*. This year,
Sophos's turnover grew at 40% - more than twice this rate. This
demonstrates the company's continued success in capturing market
share in the highly competitive anti-virus market.
The company has now enjoyed several consecutive years of
impressive yet steady growth. Since 1994, Sophos has experienced
compound annual turnover growth of 44% and compound pre-tax profits
growth of 47%.
Contributing to this year's growth was new revenue resulting
from Sophos's further expansion into international territories. In
November 2001, Sophos opened a new office in Singapore, enabling
the company to better target the lucrative Asia Pacific market.
Sophos strengthened its European presence with the opening of a
Milan-based Italian subsidiary in 2002.
In May 2002, Sophos announced that TA Associates had bought a
minority stake in the company for £41 million (US$60 million). As
part of the investment two TA senior executives have been appointed
as non-executive directors of Sophos, one to the board of Sophos
Plc and the other to the board of Sophos Americas. This second
appointment will specifically help drive Sophos's US market
activities.
Sophos has also achieved some high profile customer wins in the
last year including AMP Group, Alliance and Leicester, Britannia,
and the Football Association.
The company's achievements were also recognised with a number of
prestigious awards. In the last year, Sophos has been named
'Company of the Year' at the CBI/Real Business Growing Business
Awards and received two Queen's Awards for Enterprise in the
categories of 'Innovation' and 'International Trade'. Sophos's
anti-virus products have received accolades and certifications from
independent testing bodies such as ICSA Labs, West Coast Labs,
AV-Test.Org and Virus Bulletin as well as magazines including
InfoWorld, Federal Computer Week, Network News and Le Monde
Informatique.
"Our determination to remain tightly focused on the corporate
anti-virus market and continue our aggressive global expansion
strategy has paid off again this year," said Dr Jan Hruska,
co-founder and joint CEO of Sophos Anti-Virus. "Our Queen's Award
for International Trade is recognition that we are making major
in-roads into overseas markets. This international success,
together with our strong position in the UK market, provides a firm
foothold as we continue to target the market share of our larger
competitors."
In the UK, Sophos is investing in the future by building a new
£32 million global headquarters alongside its existing offices in
Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Completion is expected in early summer
2003.
*IDC Bulletin 27864 'Antivirus Software 2002: A
Segmentation of the Market'.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.