Pre-tax profits at Amdocs’ Irish arm fall 62% to €15m in 2009

PRE-TAX profits at the Irish arm of US software company, Amdocs, last year decreased by 62% to $20.1 million (€15m).

The drop follows revenues at the Dublin-based Amdocs Software Systems Ltd (ASSL) slipping by 17% from $957m (€715m) to $793.1m to the end of December 2009.

The Dublin-based operating centre for Amdocs employs 132 of the company’s 17,000 strong global workforce. However, the unit accounted for 28% of the software company’s global revenues of $2.8 billion in 2009.

The company, which has its registered office in Dublin’s Eastpoint Business Park, sustained a 61% drop in operating profits from $54m to $20m last year.

Amdocs has production and operating centres in China, Cyprus, India, Israel and the US.

It provides software and services for billing, customer relationship management (CRM), operations support systems and web portal.

In the company’s directors’ report it states that “given the difficult economic environment, the directors feel that the company has had a satisfactory year and expect the company to continue to report satisfactory results”.

The figures show that the numbers employed by the Irish unit almost doubled last year from 74 to 132, with 94 engaged in production and 38 in administration.

The company’s staff costs last year increased by 75% from $9.2m to $16.1m.

The company paid no dividend after paying a dividend of $45m in 2008.

The accounts show that the company had accumulated profits of $47.3m at the end of last year.

ASSL last year sustained $3.4m in foreign exchange losses; $9.8m in amortisation of intangible assets, $686,000 in depreciation and $60,000 on the impairment of a fixed asset.

The accounts show that the company’s ‘cost of sales’ dropped by 17% from $877.8m to $757.9m.

Administrative costs last year dropped from $24.7m to $14.2m.

The company paid $24m in corporation tax last year and this followed a payment of $31m in 2008.

According to the directors “the telecommunications industry is being transformed by continued consolidation.

“We believe consolidation and convergence are accelerating carriers’ needs to operate systems at significantly lower costs, and we believe that we have positioned ourselves to take advantage of these trends.

They state: “As a result, despite the uncertainties that still exist in the market, including those associated with the consolidation in the industry, we expect continued growth in the forthcoming financial year.”