Three Tech Vendors Meet Expectations
<B>Three Tech Vendors Meet Expectations</B>
By Jay Campbell
Three travel technology vendors posted positive June-quarter earnings relative to analysts' expectations, with Sabre Holdings and Galileo International essentially matching predictions at 59 and 47 cents per share, respectively, and Extensity Inc. beating the estimated per-share loss of 37 cents by 3 cents.
Sabre reported 3.6 percent higher revenues year over year in its second quarter, at $662 million.
Breaking out numbers according to its new business structure, Sabre said revenues from the travel marketing and distribution business grew 17.3 percent, "driven by strong growth in travel bookings and continued market share gains."
Corporate online bookings in BTS rose to 300,000 from 100,000 year over year in the three-month period.
Sabre's total bookings grew 5.8 percent, with a 6.4 percent jump in the U.S. Non-airline bookings rose 14 percent.
The outsourcing and software solutions unit suffered a 17.7 percent year-over-year decline due in part to the conclusion of work on two IT outsourcing contracts and a reduction in applications development work for Canadian Airlines.
Sabre earned 1.2 percent lower profits year over year, excluding extraordinary items, partly due to "the increased investments in promotion and advertising at Travelocity.com, which merged with Preview Travel Inc." and costs associated with the spin-off from AMR Corp.
"We experienced record revenue growth in our travel marketing and distribution business with increasing market share in North America, and exceptional growth in the online travel sites that we own and support," said William Hannigan, chairman and CEO. Revenue trends will "improve in the outsourcing and software solutions business in the latter half of the year."
Galileo earned 31 percent lower year over year, at $43.2 million, on 6.7 percent higher revenues.Operating income dropped 9.1 percent.
Global booking volume dropped 1.4 percent, marked by an 8.2 percent decline in the U.S. due to an oft-cited sales force transition, as well as "the increasing impact of the shift in bookings to Internet travel sites, and the earlier than expected loss of the Preview Trvael account," the company said.
Extensity, which lost $7.7 million, grew revenues 43 percent to $5.3 million. Its net loss was about $100,000 lower year over year, and Extensity beat its June, 1999 per-share performance by 3 cents.
"Across the board, we had a terrific quarter," said Bob Spinner, president and CEO of Extensity. "Sales through direct and indirect channels were extremely strong, and new products were favorably received by existing customers as well as new accounts."
Extensity said that its total customer base is now more than 170.