CHENNAI, India: Sify Technologies Limited (NASDAQ Global Markets: SIFY) today
announced financial results for its third quarter ended 31st December 2010.
Financial Highlights:
- Sify's total operating revenues were at US$ 38.72 million in
the third quarter 2010-11.
- EBITDA is at US$ 2.13 million vis-a-vis US$ 1.21 million in the
previous quarter. Previous year third quarter EBITDA was at
US$ 1.17 million.
- After substantial depreciation and interest, the net loss for the
quarter was at US$ 2.09 million.
- Capital infusion of US$ 21.7 million during this quarter.
- Cash generated from operations for the last nine months was at
US$ 3.56 million
Mr. Raju Vegesna, Promoter & CMD, said, "Even though we have
seen a sharp drop in bandwidth prices in the market, our enterprise business
has shown resilience by taking a pro-active approach to protect margins. We
are committed to monetizing our investments in EIG under-sea cable,
commissioning the Noida Data Center in the next fiscal year and expanding our
network. Managed Services Practice in our Infrastructure Management Business
is witnessing satisfactory growth. The Consumer business is transiting to a
more scalable model to support healthy revenues with emphasis on delivery of
Value Added Services on the Cloud platform." He further added, "Our focus
will always be healthy revenue growth with continued focus on cost
management. This will be a continuous process."
Mr. CVS Suri, Chief Operating Officer, said, "We see process
improvements and revenue productivity making an impact on our bottom-line and
have aligned all the teams in this endeavor. We have rolled out a new
Performance Management System and a new Procurement system which enables us
to leverage untapped potential and accelerate realization of the benefits of
cost optimization efforts underway. We have also aligned the organization
structure to the needs of the market for better revenue growth."
Mr. MP Vijay Kumar, Chief Financial Officer, said, "Relentless
focus on hygiene has enabled us to sustain a positive EBITDA over the last
few quarters and shown a healthy growth this quarter. The Promoters have in
response to their subscription to the capital of US$ 86 million, already
infused capital of US$21.7 million. The infusion of capital has improved our
liquidity position and will help us to fund our Data Center and Network
expansion. Consequent to the on-going changes in the consumer business model,
we will review productivity of related assets."
Unaudited Consolidated income statement as per IFRS
(In $ million, all translated at $1 = Rs.44.81)
Description Quarter ended Quarter ended Quarter ended
December December September
2010 2009 2010
Unaudited Audited Unaudited
Enterprise 31.73 31.00 31.43
Consumer 2.77 4.31 3.04
Others 4.22 3.20 3.84
Revenue 38.72 38.51 38.31
Cost of Revenues (24.02) (23.70) (23.52)
Selling, General and
Administrative Expenses (12.57) (13.64) (13.58)
EBIDTA 2.13 1.17 1.21
Depreciation and Amortisation
expensese (3.91) (4.15) (3.89)
Net Finance Expenses (1.37) (1.82) (1.30)
Other Income 0.44 13.42 0.45
Share of Affiliates 0.62 0.63 0.74
Profit / (loss) Before tax (2.09) 9.25 (2.79)
Income Taxes - - -
Profit / (loss) for the period (2.09) 9.25 (2.79)
Business Highlights
ENTERPRISE BUSINESS
Sify's Enterprise business has successfully added large
enterprise customers to all its business verticals. Riding on the back of
growing demand for Cloud and Data Centre services and backed by alliances
with some of the industry's leading players, Sify consolidated its position
as a leading Managed Services Provider.
Connectivity:
Sify has successfully closed the quarter with significant wins
from sectors like IT, Telecom, Retail, Manufacturing and the Government. This
quarter Sify has been successful in winning large bandwidth contracts from
the ISP market.
Also, Network-to-network-interface with new telecom services
providers helps us in offering our Bandwidth and RF last mile services. This
unique proposition has helped Sify to provide last mile to other Telecom
Service Providers for their customers.
Sify has launched Express Night Connect services on Internet
to address the growing needs of the Call centre and BPO market.
Hosting:
Hosting business has grown by 26.35 % over the same quarter
previous year. Sify has become a dominant Cloud Services Provider in the
Indian market. This has helped Sify win many contracts. The customer
contracts include IaaS( Infrastructure as Service) i.e. On demand Compute, On
demand Storage and managed services. Existing customers have also scaled up
their capacities.
The DR setup for the cloud services is ready from Sify's
Bangalore data centre. This will help customers subscribe to the BCP/DR
solution on Sify's Cloud setup.
Sify's continued alliances with industry leaders has come in
handy on large bids for connectivity and hosting business prospects. The
strong alliances have also helped Sify offer Cloud based services to the
business partners of the Industry leaders like HP. Sify's collaboration with
Independent Software Vendor communities to host applications on the Cloud
Platform is beginning to take concrete form.
Managed Voice services:
Business Volume (in minutes) of International long distance
(ILD) business (India Termination) has grown by a little over 10 % this
quarter over the previous quarter and the revenue grew by around 6%. Traffic
volume in Hubbing has gone up by 29% while the revenue has gone up by 23%.
System Integration Business:
The Tripura State Data Centre project has been successfully
completed and has been handed over to the state government. Sify has been
awarded the contract for Jharkhand State Data centre. With this contract, the
total number of State Data Centre projects won by Sify will stand at 5.
Enterprise Application Services:
EAS has partnered with Nokia for Tej, a hosted mobile order
management service integrated with Forum to track information from the field
on-the-go. EAS has also launched Forum D'Lite, which is a lean and robust
stand-alone software handpicked from the suite of Forum corporate offerings,
revamped to cater to independent distributors/dealers dealing in finished
products.
EAS holds a unique position in the Hybrid Messaging space,
providing a fusion between Microsoft Exchange and Linux based mail server.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
We have just bagged the business for an expanded scope of
services from a global player. To further such business, we have signed up a
couple of business associates to help expand the same.
The US market will continue to be our focus for market
penetration both horizontally and vertically.
Our new strategies will include addressing the active SMB
market segment through partnerships, focusing on business associates program
to reach out to new customers and leveraging Sify's cloud capability to build
niche cloud services.
eLearning
3 new Accounts have been added - two from the Industrial
Components sector and one from a Development Agency. Sustained Q-on-Q growth
with increased demand from existing customers as well as newer accounts is
the driver. Strategic focus on new customer build-up has resulted in reduced
Concentration risk with share of Top 2 customers at 20% of total revenue for
the Quarter.
Sify has successfully piloted new technology-based learning
products with our local partner in the Chinese market. This will help us
increase traction for our services in this region in the coming fiscal
The eLearning division also won the Bronze at the Brandon-Hall
Learning Excellence Awards 2010 in the Mobile Learning category thus
maintaining an unbroken five years winning streak.
CONSUMER SERVICES
More cafes into the Sify fold
In perhaps the first time in more than 3 years, the numbers of
cafes opting for Sify registered a significant increase over the previous
quarter. A 14% growth has been recorded over the previous quarter up from 8%
over quarter one.
Advertising revenue
Spending by brand advertisers on our portals is beginning to
improve. Advertising revenues increased by 30% over last quarter.
Comparatively, the rise over the same period last year was a modest 8%
Investment in usability tools/user experience
On both our Sify and Samachar portals, we have invested in
user centric usability tools like HTML5, Jump lists and Personalised
recommendations.
The photo gallery can now be experienced through Microsoft's
IE9 browser and other modern browsers that support HTML 5 standards.
Windows 7 users can now enjoy the benefit of pinning all
properties of Sify.com onto their taskbar and browsing them seamlessly via
Jumplists.
'Personalized recommendations' suggests articles based on a
user's content consumption pattern within Samachar over a few clicked news
articles.
Wireless broadband gains traction
With our wireless broadband implementation picking up steam, a
special offer was launched in Tambaram (Chennai suburbs). Christened "Double
Delicious Pongal Offer", any new customer taking a broadband connection in
Tambaram gets speeds of 512 kbps for the price of 256 kbps.
Launch of Sify Talk services to Cafes:
To extend our VOIP strategy to a different segment, Sify Talk,
a VoIP service (Voice over Internet Protocol), targeted at internet cafes and
PCOs was launched on October 2010. This follows the launch of Sify talk
services to Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) and Small Office/Home Office
(SOHO) businesses.
Increase in online renewals
To promote online transactions and to aid our customers adopt
online mode of payments, we launched a below-the-line campaign for existing
broadband customers. This has helped us push online renewals from 6% to over
10% of the total renewals.
Alliances
As an initiative to extend the benefits of Sify mylife, our
consumer cloud platform, Sify and Hungama Digital Media now offer
entertainment content to the consumers. Consumers can now purchase coupons
from the various Sify cyber cafes spread across the country to buy the music
of their choice and download the content at any Sify cafe across India using
three simple steps - browse, preview and download.
SIFY SOFTWARE LIMITED
Current focus
Comprehensive Browser based Forum Distribution Management
System. Both Principal and Distributor operate over the internet; application
can be hosted at Sify or at the Client's data center. Another focus is on
building Middleware for integrating with Principal ERP.
Advantage of our Messaging platform
Sify holds a unique position in the Hybrid Messaging space,
being a provider who offers a fusion between Microsoft Exchange and Linux
Based Mail Server.
iTest platform
UIDAI (iTest) - This project involves certification of Master
Trainers, Supervisors, Tech Support and Enrolment Operators for the mammoth
Unique Identification Authority of India program, who in turn will go to the
field and start the enumeration. We set up test centres at various locations,
tied up with e-ports and ensured that all the deadlines set by UIDAI to
Enrolment Agencies for certification were met within 31st December.
About Sify Technologies
Sify is among the largest Managed Enterprise and Consumer Internet
Services companies in India, offering end-to-end solutions with a
comprehensive range of products delivered over a common telecom data network
infrastructure reaching more than 600 cities and towns in India.
A significant part of the company's revenue is derived from Corporate
Services, which include corporate connectivity, network and communications
solutions, security, network management services, enterprise applications and
hosting. Sify is a recognized ISO 9001:2008 certified service provider for
network operations, data center operations and customer support, and for
provisioning of VPNs, Internet bandwidth, VoIP solutions and integrated
security solutions, and ISO / IEC 20000 - 1:2005 certified for Internet Data
Center operations. Sify has licenses to operate NLD (National Long Distance)
and ILD (International Long Distance) services and offers VoIP back haul to
long distance subscriber telephony services. The company is India's first
enterprise managed services provider to launch a Security Operations Center
(SOC) to deliver managed security services. A host of blue chip customers use
Sify's corporate service offerings.
Sify also caters to global markets in the specialized domains of
eLearning Services and Remote Infrastructure Management Services. The
eLearning Services designs, develops and delivers state-of-the-art digital
learning solutions for non-profit, for-profit organizations and governmental
organizations in the fields of Information technology, engineering,
environment, healthcare, education and finance. The Remote Infrastructure
Management Services provides dependable and economical solutions around
managed services, hosting and monitoring.
Consumer services include broadband home access and the ePort cyber cafe
chain across more than 200 cities and towns in India. Sify.com, the popular
consumer portal, has channels on news, entertainment, finance, sports, games
and shopping. Samachar.com is the popular portal aimed at non-resident
Indians around the globe. The site's content is available in 8 Indian
languages, which include Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil, Punjabi
and Gujarati in addition to English.
For more information about Sify, visit http://www.Sifycorp.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and
Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The
forward-looking statements contained herein are subject to risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
reflected in the forward-looking statements. Sify undertakes no duty to
update any forward-looking statements.
For a discussion of the risks associated with Sify's business,
please see the discussion under the caption "Risk Factors" in the company's
Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31, 2010, which has been
filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and is
available by accessing the database maintained by the SEC at
http://www.sec.gov, and Sify's other reports filed with the SEC.
For further information, please contact
Sify Technologies Limited Grayling Investor Relations
Mr. Pijush Das Ms. Truc Nguyen (ext. 418)
Investor Relations Mr. Christopher Chu (ext. 426)
+91-44-2254-0777 (ext. 2703) +1-646-284-9400
pijush.das@Sifycorp.com truc.nguyen@grayling.com
christopher.chu@grayling.com
Mr. Praveen Krishna
Corporate Communications
+91-44-22540777 (extn.2055)
praveen.krishna@Sifycorp.com
