PLM software giant Autodesk yesterday reported record revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2008, ended April 30. Net revenue in the quarter was $509 million, a 17% increase over last year's comparable period.
"Once again, we achieved strong quarterly results on most of our key business metrics, including 3D revenue, maintenance revenue from subscriptions, and revenue from emerging economies," said Autodesk President and CEO Carl Bass on a conference call with investors.
Addressing the company's review of its past stock-option-granting practices — which has prevented Autodesk from publicly reporting net earnings or earnings-per-share results since the second quarter of fiscal 2007 — Bass said the company submitted certain financial statement information to the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 3, and is awaiting advice from the SEC before restating earnings for prior quarters or fiscal 2007. Company officials did not specify when investors could expect the restated results, only saying it would occur sometime "in the near future."
Compared with last year, Bass said, revenue for new software seats increased 10%. In particular, Bass said improvements in ease of use of AutoCAD Mechanical, the 2D design and drafting software for manufacturers, contributed to a 65% increase in revenue for the product.
Revenue from model-based 3D software including Inventor, Revit, and Civil 3D increased 19% year-over-year to $106 million, representing 21% of Autodesk's total revenue in the quarter. However, 3D net revenue per unit decreased approximately 10%, which the company attributed to its ongoing reallocation of resources, such as reseller incentive programs, away from horizontal products in order to focus on sales of 3D and vertical products.
Autodesk shipped 32,000 commercial seats of 3D products during the quarter, including the company's milestone one millionth 3D seat.
14,000 seats of Revit were shipped in the quarter, with a 31% increase in revenue for the product line, while revenue from Civil 3D was up 17% over the comparable period last year, with 7,400 seats shipped. Inventor revenue increased 15%, with 10,600 seats shipped in the quarter.
Total revenue from Autodesk's Manufacturing Solutions division increased 26% year-over-year to $94 million.
Autodesk's installed base contributed $197 million in revenue through maintenance and upgrades, a 22% improvement over the comparable period last year. The company's installed base grew to 1.3 million subscribers in the quarter, while upgrade revenue decreased 5%.
The company also reported another quarter of strong revenue from emerging economies, which jumped 36% year over year, representing 14% of total revenue in the quarter. Revenue in the Americas region increased by 8% over the like period last year to $184 million. Revenue from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa totaled $207 million, an increase of 26% (14% in constant currencies). Despite continued poor performance in Japan, Asia Pacific revenue grew 16% year over year, to $117 million. Excluding Japan, revenue increased 32% over last year's first quarter.
In the wake of the strong results, Autodesk raised its guidance for revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2008 to between $520 million and $530 million. The company expects the same for its third quarter, as well. For fiscal 2008, the company has raised its guidance to total net revenue of between $2.115 billion and $2.150 billion.
Autodesk's revenue upswing echoes the performance of some of its competitors in the PLM market. Last month, Dassault reported a 15% increase in year-over-year revenue, while PTC announced that sales had spiked 14%.
And consumers aren't the only ones increasing their investments in the sector. Earlier this week, enterprise application heavyweight Oracle moved to acquire PLM provider Agile Software Corp. for just less than $500 million, in a deal that is expected to close in July.
Meanwhile, in March Autodesk began shipping its 2008 family of products, which features compatibility with 64-bit technology and the Vista operating system, as well as improved productivity for its flagship AutoCAD family of design software, the company said.
"Worldwide business trends [including] globalization, rising energy costs ... and an increasing need to keep data digital create tremendous pressure to improve productivity and profitability while increasing innovation. Our customers are seeking differentiation through design," Bass said.
In other news, Autodesk earlier this month released a preview version of its Inventor LT 3D software for manufacturing customers. The product facilitates enhanced creation, sharing, and editing of 3D part design among trading partners and suppliers, the company said, by eliminating traditional obstacles when moving 3D CAD designs between systems.