Micropole, an international consulting and integration company, specializing in the Business Intelligence, e-Business, ERP and CRM fields, attained a consolidated turnover of 61.3 million Euros over the first Half-year 2012, representing growth of 5.4 % compared to the 58.1 million Euro figure attained at the same period in 2011.
Consolidated turnover for the second quarter 2012 stands at 30.9 million Euro, an increase of 5.2 % in relation to the previous financial year. These figures include the business of the Belgian company Velixis, wholly acquired by Micropole, and of which the accounts were integrated on April 1st.
Micropole has recorded a first half-year 2012 turnover of 59.2 million Euros, representing 1.9% growth compared to the first half-year 2011. Like-on-like, the second quarter turnover stands at 29.0 million Euros, a drop of 1.4 % in relation to the same period last year.
As we had anticipated, the second quarter 2012 has shown a slowdown in business, particularly for the months of April and May.
- In France, the macro-economic and political context generated a wait-and-see policy in almost all business sectors, accentuated by the highly negative 3.2% worked days’ effect over the second quarter 2012 in comparison with 2011. If this basic effect is subtracted from the 2nd quarter 2012 performance, France remains up almost 2% in terms of organic growth.
- In Switzerland, business underwent a marked slowdown for the first time, due to the systemic issues related to the banking sector, and to the high exchange rates of the Swiss Franc, penalizing corporate investments.
- In Benelux, however, turnover progression remains dynamic, ERP projects being notably driven by our customers’ international development.
- Our business in China, still in development phase, has not yet had a significant impact on turnover. The prospects are promising, however, with the recent signature of several key projects as an indicator.
This drop in corporate investment is nonetheless in line with the following reasoning:
- Demand remains high on high value-added services (like for example financial management applications -FPM offers- or corporate repository management -MDM offers-) domains in which Micropole holds a leadership position.
- All companies having geared development to international markets (Industry, Luxury…) continue to show growth and investment; this fully supports our strategy which aims to partner our customers in their international deployments and notably with our establishment in China.
- We note that the market segmentation between package and time and material –based projects tends to intensify: customer demand is much higher on result-committal services, Micropole’s long-standing area of expertise.
On the strength of these observations, and basing ourselves on a healthy and solid financial structure, the Micropole group intends to continue to out-perform its market and pursue its development in the coming years, including through external growth opportunities.
« The situation is obviously more complex than in 2011, with visibility to date on the second half-year remaining difficult to assess. We have therefore logically adopted a more selective attitude both with regard to our recruitment policy and our investment projects. Our strategy is, however, yet again bolstered and we will strive in the coming months to accentuate and amplify our positioning on differentiating offers, both current and innovative», comments Christian Poyau, Micropole CEO.
