Mr Kevin Fielding (left), chief operating officer, Parthus Technologies, with colleagues Mr Brian Long, chief executive, and Mr Peter McManamon, chief financial officer.
Shares in mobile phone software group Parthus Technologies rose strongly on the London and Nasdaq markets yesterday. The group reported strong results for last year and also gave an upbeat assessment for the current year.
The shares closed 20p higher in heavy London trading to 205p sterling and were trading more than $2-1/2 higher in early Nasdaq trading at just below $31.
Fourth-quarter results from Parthus were well ahead of market forecasts with sales up 77 per cent to $9.3 million and licence and royalty income almost trebling to $5.1 million.
Parthus, which develops platform-level intellectual property (IP) solutions for the mobile Internet market, reported revenues of $31.9 million in the year to end-December 2000, with licensing revenues up 208 per cent to $16.1 million.
Losses for the quarter and full year were also below market forecasts. Parthus is seen by analysts as being on target to move into profit next year.
The past year has seen Parthus derive increasingly higher income from licence and royalties and this change in the business mix has meant that operating margins have improved. Parthus yesterday announced its biggest ever licensing deal with US networking giant 3Com. Last year 3Com made an investment and holds about 1 per cent of the equity. Chief executive Mr Brian Long gave a bullish assessment of the prospects for Parthus in the current year. "We are confident 2001 will be another good year for Parthus with customer and product announcements that will position us as one of the leaders in the wireless world," he said.
Mr Long acknowledged the global downturn in the technology sector, particularly in the personal computer market, but said Parthus was well placed to withstand any impact, despite any "tightening in the market place".
He said that even if there was a slowdown in sales of handheld mobile telephone devices, his company was sufficiently diversified to weather it. "We are targeting high growth sectors of the market."
Mr Long said he expected Parthus to break even by mid2002 and be profitable thereafter. It said it expected licensing revenue growth of 60 per cent in 2001.
