FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany -- LHS, part of the Ericsson Group (NASDAQ:ERIC) and a leading provider of telecom billing and customer care systems across the wireless, wireline, and IP telecom markets worldwide, today announced its business results for the 1st quarter 2009 (period ended: March 31, 2009). The results were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). They include the following key figures for the quarter:
• In Q1 2009, the company achieved a turnover of EUR 24.2 million, which is only slightly below last year’s first quarter (EUR 24.8 million).
• In the quarter under review, the adjusted EBITDA was EUR 2.0 million. In the same quarter of the previous year, the company achieved EUR 4.1 million. The net profit in Q1 2009 was EUR 0.7 million. During the same period of the previous year, the company recorded EUR 3.2 million. Both results are due to decreased license revenues in the first quarter of 2009.
• The earnings per share for the period under review stood at EUR 0.05 (undiluted and diluted).
Highlights of the first quarter
• In the period under review, three contracts were signed for new projects in North Africa and Europe. The projects consist of migrations to a newer version of BSCS iX. The number of installations with BSCS iX thus reached 54.
• In Q1 2009, LHS continued to expand its market share in the target markets – today approximately 118 million postpaid mobile communications customers are billed with BSCS solutions. This is equivalent to approximately 23 percent of postpaid mobile communications customers in the LHS target markets, and around 10 percent around the world.
• On the reporting date of March 31, 2009, LHS was operating 132 BSCS installations around the world.
• On the occasion of the Mobile World Congress in February 2009 in Barcelona, LHS introduced BSCS iX Release 3. The first projects with the latest billing and customer care solution are expected to be implemented in the second quarter of 2009.
• In the period under review, the company created 23 new jobs, including 12 in Frankfurt/Main. Thus at the end of the first quarter 2009, LHS had a total of 792 employees worldwide. In the same quarter of the previous year, this number was 703. Thus the number of employees increased by almost 13 percent over the course of the year.
"With a slight drop in turnover compared to the same quarter of the previous year, we have experienced the most difficult business quarter of our recent company history," said Wolfgang Kroh, CEO of LHS Aktiengesellschaft. "Due to a shift in the turnover mix, the licensing ratio dropped to 19 percent, which primarily impacted our top-line and bottom-line results. However, based on the positive feedback for new projects that we received early in Q2, we are optimistic that we will be able to perform substantially better in Q2 2009 recovering from the turnover shortfall. At the same time we expect to increase our year on year turnover in the first half of the year and in fiscal 2009 as planned, despite the more difficult market situation," Kroh concluded.
LHS Telekommunikation GmbH & Co. KG