Excluding 6m pounds ($11.4m) in additional revenue generated through acquisitions, Brentford, UK-based Morse’s sales would in fact have declined 2% to 181.1m pounds ($344m).
Revenue in its largest market, the UK and Ireland, performed well, up 15% at 124.9m pounds ($237.3m), but growth was outstripped by Spain, where revenue grew 49% to 12.1m pounds ($23m), and Germany where the December 2003 acquisition of Techsol helped grow revenue 21% to 29.1m pounds ($55.3m). Excluding the Techsol purchase, Germany would still have grown 19%, and Morse said the market has stabilized over the period. France was the worst performer, where losses widened and revenue declined 18% to 21.1m pounds ($40.1m). Here the company reduced headcount to 150 from 177 in 2002.
Speaking to ComputerWire, Morse CEO Duncan McIntyre said Morse is experiencing strong demand in the financial services sector where overall revenue grew 22% to 91.1m pounds ($173.1m). Demand is strongest within wholesale finance where Morse claims to be seeing companies return to investment across nearly all lines of business. The public sector is another area of growth for Morse having entered the market 18 months ago. Here revenue grew 86% to 13.2m pounds ($25.1m). However telecommunications, media and commercial continue to be depressed, with revenue down 40%, 37% and 10% respectively.
Morse said the business has experienced an increase in demand over recent months, and this helped grow revenue in the second half of 2003. Commenting on the outlook, McIntyre said: We see stability in 2004, however the sentiment from our clients is that things are getting better. We expect to see flat growth, or maybe a small single-digit increase.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
