SAS announces record revenues of $1.68 billion

Launch of SAS® Enterprise Intelligence Platform, strong solutions performance drive revenue up 10%

Dublin, Ireland, 21. Feb. 2006 -  SAS, the market leader in business intelligence software today announced that its intelligence strategy, evidenced by increased demand for the SAS® Enterprise Intelligence Platform and industry-specific solutions, led to record sales in 2005. Total revenue grew 10%, from $1.53 billion to $1.68 billion, marking 29 consecutive years of revenue growth and profitability.

"Our customers rely on the SAS®9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform to grow profits and improve customer satisfaction," said CEO Jim Goodnight. "With demand for SAS technologies, solutions and industry expertise never greater, we're better positioned than ever to meet it."

Revenue breakdown
From an industry perspective, solutions for banking continued to lead, growing 10% and generating 28% of industry-specific revenue. Retail was up 20%, education 16%, insurance 12% and government 11%. As for horizontal cross-industry business solutions, global sales jumped 24% over 2004 due to gains in the areas of business performance management, HR, IT, marketing automation and risk.

SAS' revenue showed global balance: 46% came from Americas, 44% from Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and 10% from Asia Pacific.

The Americas grew by 9%, with 7% growth in the established U.S. market and 17% in Canada. Latin America and the Caribbean grew 42%, highlighted by 86% growth in Mexico and 22% in Brazil.

Overall 11% growth in EMEA was sparked by increases in established markets including South Africa (33%), Norway (32%), Spain (31%), Austria (26%), Poland (21%) and Germany (11%), as well as high growth in an emerging market in Russia (66%). Asia Pacific grew 15% overall, led by South Korea (44%), Singapore (20%) and China (including Hong Kong) (30%), with India's revenue more than doubling.

Focus on customers
"SAS' longevity is a testament to our strong customer relationships," Goodnight said. "We maintain this loyalty by focusing on customer retention and investing 24% of revenues into research and development."

SAS customers who licensed software in 2005 included: Aeon Credit Service Co. Ltd., Barclays Bank PLC, BASF SA, BMW of North America LLC, CitiFinancial International, Colombia Telecomunicaciones SA, Daiichi, France Telecom, Hasselt University, Hema Quebec, Office Depot International BV, Redcats USA, Samsung Life Insurance, Teléfonica, Too Inc, China Trust Commercial Bank, Miami University of Ohio, and Verizon Communications Inc.

More than 3,400 current SAS customers, recognising the value of their SAS investment, licensed additional software in 2005. SAS' new global Business Intelligence Competency Center program will help customers make the most of their BI investments by building cohesive strategies.

SAS' market position in BI
Several 2005 reports by influential industry analysts recognised SAS' leadership. Specifically, Gartner Inc. positioned SAS in its Leaders Quadrant in "Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q06." Leaders, as defined by Gartner, demonstrate breadth and depth of BI platform capabilities and deliver on enterprisewide implementations that support broad BI strategies.(1) SAS was also in the Leaders Quadrant in Gartner's "Magic Quadrant for Basel II Risk Management Application Software."(2)

SAS was ranked the BI leader in CIO Insight's 2005 Vendor Value Survey, in which 884 IT executives identified top vendors for delivering value and reliability. (Read more about awards and rankings.)

Trends and outlook for 2006
"SAS expects continued strong growth, particularly in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), as more organisations take on fact-based decision making," said Goodnight. "BI for the masses," combined with the trend toward BI standardisation, requires the powerful, consistent platform that only the SAS®9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform offers. This platform is composed of four critical elements - SAS Data Integration, SAS Storage, SAS Analytics and SAS Business Intelligence.

In 2005, organisations partnered with SAS to work on issues dealing with governance and regulatory compliance, including Basel II for the financial industry and the USA Patriot Act. SAS customers also looked to SAS to target profitable new customer or market segments.

"In 2006, these issues are fundamentally still there," said Goodnight. "The speed with which organisations want to address these issues is increasing. That pressure to innovate and respond to rapidly changing market dynamics is where our business and industry solutions, in particular, will be an enormous aid, as people modernise from legacy best-of-breed environments to a true intelligence strategy."

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: 
Siobhan Molloy / Louise Cassidy, Weber Shandwick
Tel: 01 6760168 / 086 817 5066 / 086 383 5727
smolloy@webershandwick.com/ lcassidy@webershandwick.com

(1) Gartner Research. "Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q06" by Kurt Schlegel, Bill Hostmann, Andreas Bitterer, Betsy Burton. January 9, 2006.

(2) Gartner Research "Magic Quadrant for Basel II Risk Management Application Software, 2005" by David Furlonger and Douglas McKibben. September 16, 2005.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted January 9, 2006 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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