PeopleSoft Beats 4Q Estimates

In an economic year tempered by sluggish growth in the technology sector, PeopleSoft Inc.'s financials broke the spell by beating Wall street's expectations. PeopleSoft's better-than-expected results followed similar good news from CRM competitors Siebel Systems and Pivotal.

For the three months ending Dec. 31, the enterprise software firm reported net income of $57.8 million, or 18 cents per share, compared to $44.2 million, or 14 cents per share for the same period in 2000. For the quarter, revenue shot up to $528.2 million compared to $489.8 million in the year-ago quarter.

PeopleSoft's financial results beat analysts' expectations by two cents, according to First Call, which found that on the average analysts expected earnings of 16 cents per share on revenue of $521.7 million. During the fourth quarter, the company reported $174 million in license fees and $335.3 million in services revenue, up from $164.5 million in license fees and $300 million in services for the same period in 2000.

PeopleSoft President and CEO Craig Conway cited the company's revamped business automation software in the form of PeopleSoft 8 and the introduction of PeopleSoft 8 CRM and PeopleSoft Enterprise Service Automation. "PeopleSoft's fourth quarter results were a strong finish to a very strong year," said Conway in a prepared statement.

The company has received good response from its June 2001 release of PeopleSoft 8 CRM, a new product framework for developing pure Internet CRM solutions, a move to put pressure on Siebel. PeopleSoft 8 CRM for Financial Services was rolled out in December, and is part of a strategy that builds on its financial services experience to create a packaged solution for this vertical industry, according to a report by Current Analysis, a market analyst firm.

For the year, PeopleSoft reported revenue of $2 billion and income of $191 million, or 59 cents per share, compared to revenue of $1.7 billion and income of $145.6 million, or 48 cents per share, in 2000. For the year, the company reported $645.4 million in license revenue and $1.3 billion in service revenue up from $496.111 million in license fees and $1.11billion in services.