ALPNET Announces Results for First Quarter 2000
9 May 2000
ALPNET Announces Results for First Quarter 2000
SALT LAKE CITY, May 9 ALPNET, Inc. , a world
leader in Multilingual Business-to-Business Services, today announced results
for the quarter ended March 31, 2000. Sales of services for the quarter were
$12.2 million compared with sales for the first quarter 1999 of $12.5 million.
Sales for the first quarter 2000 would have been approximately $560,000 higher
without the negative effect of foreign currency exchange rates, particularly
the Euro against the U.S. Dollar.
The net loss for the first quarter 2000 was ($720,000), or ($.026) per
share basic and diluted as compared to net income in the first quarter of 1999
of $104,000 or $.004 per share basic and diluted. The negative effect of
foreign currency exchange rates increased the first quarter 2000 loss by
approximately $30,000.
First Quarter Financial Highlights
The results for first quarter 2000 reflect significant expenditures the
company has made, and will continue to make, as it integrates its new
Internet-based Application Service Provider (ASP) business model and its
ALPNETXchange enterprise system. ALPNETXchange will provide clients with a
comprehensive set of services via a secure Internet interface, allowing
clients to outsource their complete worldwide multilingual information service
requirements to ALPNET.
Sales volume from existing clients began to increase from the middle of
the quarter and the Company has added more than 30 new accounts including:
Philips Consumer Electronics, Bentley Systems, Pilatus Aircraft Ltd, Compaq
Munich, AGFA, Konica, Canon Europe, IDS Scheer AG, Hitachi, GE Norway, Legato,
Pavilion Technology, Toronto Stock Exchange, Compaq Asia and Dell Online in
Singapore and Malaysia. Management expects the Company's level of sales to
increase throughout the remainder of 2000, consistent with its new business
plan.
54% of the Company's sales were generated in Europe in the first quarter.
The top twenty global accounts represented 41% of total sales, consistent with
a key ALPNET sales strategy of capturing a larger percentage of each client's
business. Due to lingering Y2K concerns on the part of some clients, certain
anticipated projects were delayed until later in the first quarter of 2000.
"The results for first quarter 2000 are in accordance with management's
plan for the integration of the Company's new ASP business model, based upon
its InfoCycle vision to recycle multilingual information utilizing its
Internet-based enterprise system -- ALPNETXchange. ALPNET is moving
aggressively toward sustaining its competitive advantage and gaining market
share more quickly. To complete and launch ALPNETXchange, the company has
shifted significant internal focus to this new venture and has increased
expenditures in technology development and support, sales training, marketing,
public relations, and recruiting. These expenditures will continue throughout
the year 2000 and are expected to lead to accelerated growth and significantly
improved profitability in the following years," said John Wittwer, ALPNET
Chief Financial Officer.
Comments from ALPNET CEO Jaap van der Meer
"We have accelerated the implementation of our strategic business plan,"
comments Jaap van der Meer, CEO and President of ALPNET. "We have been
meeting with a number of our clients to present and to validate our new
business model. Clients clearly understand the advantages of ALPNETXchange
and the ASP model for worldwide Multilingual Information Management Services.
This breakthrough information model will both utilize and address the needs of
the World Wide Web which include multilingual content, content creation,
software localization, and content translation. Our clients' responses are
very positive toward our ASP model and they confirm that our innovative
technology will dramatically reduce their translation and localization costs
and facilitate significantly shorter time-to-market for their products and
services."
"We have engaged Xceed, Inc. to develop the remaining component of the
ALPNETXchange system which is an external Internet portal that will facilitate
client access to the ALPNETXchange system. We have also engaged National
Computer Systems in Singapore as our ASP facilities management services
provider to ensure the highest level of integrity and security for our
clients' multilingual data. We expect to introduce ALPNETXchange in July 2000
with strategic launch clients and to commercially release it this fall,"
continued Jaap van der Meer.
"We strongly believe that ALPNET has a unique solution that solves the
business problem of global information management. Our solution radically
improves the productivity, quality, and cycle time of global information
management. We are well positioned with our people, our processes, and our
technology to satisfy the exploding demand for effective communication in a
variety of languages and cultures. Therefore, we are very confident that the
strategic investments we are making this year will lead to future growth rates
higher than we have experienced in the past. The improvement in operating
efficiencies from our new workflow system will lead to significantly increased
margins and profitability," concluded Jaap van der Meer