Revenue rose to roughly $1.1 billion, up 6.5 percent over last year's corresponding period. Americas revenue reached about $366 million, an increase of 15 percent. Payments revenue was flat in the U.S., but the company noted the March hiring of Paul Bridgewater as CEO of Sage Payments as a step to fixing things. CEO Stephen Kelley attributed the major problems with payments as "misfiring on channel strategy." Kelley discussed the need to increase the X3 pipeline to close deals to hit revenue targets. X3 revenue was flat in France, but up more than 20 percent elsewhere. Both men noted the globalization of operations so that marketing, human resources, IT, facilities and financing all report globally, instead of by country.
PRICE, SUPPORT DRIVES SAGE U.S. Featured
Sage's operations in the United States performed well in the half ended March 31. But the organic revenue growth in this country was driven largely by price increases and upgrading customers to higher-level support plans. In this week's earnings webcast, CFO Stephen Hare noted that in the U.S., "SMB growth is too reliant on price and upsell." Organic growth was 4 percent here but X3 revenue in the U.S. rose by more than 30 percent. Overall, after-tax profit dropped by 8.6 percent to about $210 million.
