SAS achieves record revenue: $2.26 billion in 2008

Malaysian operations retains 99% customers in 2008, clientele base expected to grow 30% in 2009

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (Feb. 11, 2009) – Despite the worst economic crisis in years, business analytics leader SAS continued its unbroken chain of growth in 2008, logging global revenue of US$2.26 billion, up 5.1 percent over 2007 results. It is the 33rd straight year of revenue growth for the company in the worst economy most can remember.

In Malaysia, growing and retaining its customer base are key priorities to remaining resilient according to SAS Malaysia Managing Director Jimmy Cheah.

“To date, we have successfully retained 99 per cent of our customers. This is testament to our successful strategy that is based on listening to our customers, exceeding delivery and ROI expectations.” said Cheah.
“Even in a challenging economy, we are continuously looking at opportunities in new market segments and expect our customer base to grow by 30 per cent this year.”

SAS’ recorded strongest growth in analytics, data mining and solutions that help organizations keep current customers and win new ones, manage risk and optimize processes. Notable clients in Malaysia for 2008 include Tesco Stores, F&N Coca Cola, EON Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Penang Adventist Hospital, Hospital KPJ and Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri.

“Although we are projecting a softer 2009, we expect the growth trend to continue as organisations increase their need for business analytics for customer, information, risk and performance management. In turbulent times, there is a greater need than ever for customers to understand what drives costs, profit and value to their organization,” said Cheah.

Driven by the challenging economic climate, customers globally turned to SAS’ market-leading business analytics to derive money-saving and money-making insights from ever-growing volumes of data. Globally, risk management solutions revenue were up 28 percent, and optimization software sales increased 18 percent. Total revenue from analytics and data mining rose more than 15 percent.

Although the economy is predicted to remain challenging throughout the first half of 2009, SAS will not curtail its research and development investments. Instead, the company will continue to innovate its technology and solutions that will help customers improve performance. SAS will continue to roll out enhancements and deliver new solutions in the areas of fraud, customer insight, risk and analytics as part of a business analytics framework.