F-Secure Corporation today announced solid growth in both sales and profitability for its first quarter results. The total Q1 revenue increased by 23% compared to the same quarter last year, and reached a record level of 23.1M€. At the same time EBIT increased by 38% to a record level of 4.1M€, representing 18% of revenues.
The execution of the company’s growth strategy of offering security as a service through ISP's (Internet Service Providers) continued as planned with strengthened leadership in Europe while the growth of traditional product sales was better than expected.
The company continues to grow its strategic ISP channel sales. The company further strengthened its leadership position in providing security as a service through both ISP's and mobile operators. At the end of 2006 in the European market F-Secure security services were offered by ISP's that cover 34% of the total amount of broadband subscribers in the region, making F-Secure the clear leader in this market. F-Secure is also a strong player in this market in the North American region, and has made a good entry into the Asia-Pacific region with several ISP partnerships signed in that region. The company now has a total of 143 ISP partners in 34 countries around the globe.
Revenues through other channels, including Value Added Resellers, IT Service Providers, Managed Security Service Providers, e-Store and Retail channels were 15.4M€, representing a growth of 18%. "We are pleased about the balanced execution we had during Q1, with good growth in both the strategic ISP channel, and in the significant traditional product sales channels that still represent the majority of our sales", said Kimmo Alkio, president and CEO of F-Secure Corporation. "We also now see the positive effect of the innovative technology development and the product launches we did in Q1 and the previous quarter, with our customers now fully embracing the benefits of these new award-winning products in Q1", continued Alkio.
Revenues for mobile (smartphone) security solutions continued to grow at a steady pace. F-Secure security solutions for mobile subscribers are offered through several major mobile operators, including Orange UK, Orange Switzerland, T-Mobile Germany, T-Mobile UK, Swisscom, TeliaSonera and Elisa. The company also continued its close co-operation with Nokia. F-Secure Mobile Anti-Virus was the first antivirus software for the S60 3rd edition operating systems and it will be available for the majority of the currently shipping or upcoming Nokia S60 3rd edition devices, Nseries & Eseries.
About F-Secure Corporation
F-Secure Corporation protects consumers and businesses against computer viruses and other threats from the Internet and mobile networks. We want to be the most reliable provider of security services in the market. One way to demonstrate this is the speed of our response. According to independent studies in 2004, 2005 and 2006 our response time to new threats is significantly faster than our major competitors. Our award-winning solutions are available for workstations, gateways, servers and mobile phones. They include antivirus and desktop firewall with intrusion prevention, antispam and antispyware solutions. Founded in 1988, F-Secure has been listed on the Helsinki Exchanges since 1999, and has been consistently growing faster than all its publicly listed competitors. F-Secure headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland, and we have regional offices around the world. F-Secure protection is also available as a service through major ISPs, such as France Telecom, TeliaSonera, PCCW and Charter Communications. F-Secure is the global market leader in mobile phone protection provided through mobile operators, such as T-Mobile and Swisscom and mobile handset manufacturers such as Nokia. The latest real-time virus threat scenario news are available at the F-Secure Data Security Lab weblog at http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/
For more information, please contact:
F-Secure Corporation
Kimmo Alkio, CEO, Tel. 09-2520 5500
Taneli Virtanen, CFO, Tel. 09-2520 5655
Jukka Kotovirta, Investor Relations, Tel. 040 588 3933
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