"Infobusiness", No. 5 (234) February 18, 2003

RBC's preliminary results for 2002: revenue and net income exceed forecasts

The revenue of RBC Information Systems gained 62 percent and reached $27.52m in 2002 against 2001 ($16.954m). The company's net income went up more than 1.5 times compared to 2001.

RBC's revenue from its media businesses reached $14.55m, which was 48 percent more than in 2001. Revenue from information services gained 15 percent and reached $2.4m and revenue from advertising rose 57 percent to $12.15m. In particular, revenues from Internet advertising gained 31 percent and amounted to $7.65m due to an increase in hits to RBC's Internet resources and an increase in the number of new advertisers. According to estimates of the company's experts, its share in the Russian Internet advertising market reached almost 50 percent and the share in advertising for the business audience rose to 90 percent.

The company received $12.97m in revenues from its IT business in 2002, which was 82 percent more than in 2001, including $7.97m in revenues from general-purpose software engineering (104 percent more than in 2001), $3m (93 percent more) from offshore software engineering and 2m (21 percent more) from system integration services. A rise in RBC's revenues from IT services last year significantly surpassed general growth rates of the IT sector of the Russian market, which gained about 17 to 30 percent.

In 2002, RBC continued to increase the range of its IT solutions and expanded offered software solutions through collaboration with such recognized software developers as Microsoft, Saba Software and Documentum. A rise in the company's client base was about 50 percent due to active combination sales with the company's media business.

According to forecasts of RBC's top managers, the current businesses of the company will secure at least a 25-percent rise in revenues in 2003. This forecast is based on the value of contracts that had already been signed and coordinated. This conservative growth forecast takes into consideration the current recession on western markets and its possible impact on the Russian economy. The company continues to implement its targeted investment strategy for maintaining its growth rate.

According to RBC's officials, another factor to promote the further increase in revenues will be the launch of a new television project, RBC TV, in the second quarter of 2003. The new television channel will be presented to the public at a press conference in March 2003.

Commenting on preliminary results of RBC Information Systems for 2002, RBC's Chairman of the Board of Directors and President German Kaplun noted, "The company has approached its ten-year milestone with results surpassing forecasts. Last year, RBC enjoyed rapid growth in all its business directions due to a more flexible policy on advertising and rendering information services. Among other explanations of the rise is the better management of the IT business direction and a significant increase in demand on our services as well as higher competitiveness of Russian IT companies on foreign markets. We are sure that RBC will continue to grow intensively in the future."

During the first successful IPO on the Russian market, conducted by RBC in April 2002, the company floated 16 percent of its shares on the MICEX and RTS exchanges attracting $13.28m. In October 2002, the MICEX stock council included RBC's shares on the second-level listing.

At the end of the previous year, RBC was ranked 72nd on the rating Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu 2002 European Technology Fast 500, the rating of the 500 fastest growing European high-tech companies.