Morse Holdings Plc, the UK-based systems integrator and reseller, has recorded yearly preliminary after tax profit up 103.9% at 10.9m pounds ($17.6m) on revenue that rose 31.3% to 283.9m pounds ($460.2m). Morse started out exclusively as a reseller but estimates that the services revenue included in its product sales has doubled in the last year. Revenue for its integration services, a separate financial area, increased 67% to 14m pounds ($22.8m).
Richard Lapthorne, non-executive chairman of Morse, said that the company’s more traditional revenue streams, the reselling divisions, had fared particularly well. The German arm of Morse Computers grew revenue from 18m pounds ($29.1m) in 1998 to 31.3m ($50.7m). Morse has had a busy year, adding Derby, UK e-commerce and consulting company Hughes Rae Ltd and Partner System, a Paris-based Sun reseller (CI No 3,668) to its business portfolio, as well as floating on the London Stock Exchange (CI No 3,625). Morse intends to mirror its success in Germany with Partner System in the French market.
CEO Duncan MacIntyre said that the company would look to grow the services side from its current 13% to around 20% over the next one-to-two years. Morse has ambitions to expand its European operations too. They currently represent 15% of total revenue and MacIntyre said that 40% to 50% was the target in two or three years. He described the company’s business interests as a pyramid, topped by the latest high-end internet consultancy and application building skills of Hughes Rae and underpinned by the server reseller business.
