Infomedia Ltd Reports Strong FY2001 Revenue and Profit Growth

    NARRABEEN, Australia--Aug. 28, 2001--Infomedia Ltd today released its 2001 financial year results.
    Management said it was pleased to announce that the company had achieved strong revenue and profit growth during the year. Infomedia again achieved high double-digit revenue and after-tax profit growth for the 2001 Financial Year. Operating revenue increased 66.5% over FY2000 to $36,123,000. Net profit after tax increased 67.4% over the previous financial year to $12,825,000. The result is in line with the Board's expectations and statements given earlier this year.
    A fully franked final dividend of one and one half cent will be paid to shareholders of record at 14 September 2001. This combined with the earlier interim dividend declared in March bring the total franked dividend for the year to two and one half cents.
    Electronic parts catalog subscriptions grew 25% from 24,000 to 30,000 as at 30 June 2001. After the close of the financial year, subscriptions jumped by another 2,500 monthly units as a result of Hyundai Europe and Microcat 1-2-3 being released in Europe.
    Infomedia Ltd Chairman and CEO, Mr Richard Graham, said, "We are proud of this result which reflects the concerted effort of all our personnel." He went on to say, "Throughout the year, it was business as usual for the core products. Six new data licenses were signed for our Microcat(R) and Partfinder(R) electronic parts catalogs. All were in the international arena. Application and systems development continued on our Internet EPC products, making them arguably the most advanced and workable yet released. During the course of the year, our data management division, Datateck Publishing Pty Ltd, smoothly integrated into the whole organization and business culture. Division management established new contracts for its services and products. Our acquisition of the business of On-line Computing Pty Ltd in December went smoothly. Division management has commenced an exciting new development project that management believes will set a new and higher standard of performance and functionality for critical automotive dealer management systems (DMS)."
    "It is a good feeling to achieve such a healthy result, while at the same time having invested so confidently in an expanded research and development agenda," said Mr Peter Adams, Infomedia Ltd, CFO.
    In providing guidance for the coming financial year, Mr. Adams stated that the company expected to achieve revenues in the range of $49,000,000 to $58,000,000 and profit after tax in the range of $16,000,000 to $19,000,000. In keeping with Infomedia's normal financial performance pattern, most of the growth anticipated is in the second half of the 2002 financial year. He said, "This year we are budgeting for further and higher R&D expenditures as our Online DMS division moves toward launch of their new AutoLedgers(TM) DMS and our EPC division continues its network and application development for the global Internet implementations of Microcat(R). While greater development costs will be carried in this current financial year, we are not expecting significant revenue and profit contribution from these initiatives until the 2003 financial year."
    Mr Graham stated, "In the year ahead we will continue to focus on commercializing our product and brand asset portfolios. The context for commercialization will be the convergence of our technologies into automotive dealerships, both in cooperation with other IT providers and independently. This year we will see the further maturing of our Application Service Provider (ASP) products and infrastructure. This ASP approach will allow the company to provide its products as an `information utility' to dealerships around the world. The benefits to dealerships of this modern computing approach are clear, tangible and meaningful. By doing convergence groundwork now, we will be establishing a sound platform for company longevity and shareholder returns.
    "These excellent results confirm the sound fundamentals of the company and management, which it seems so many investors value these days."