Siebel says still sees good Asian demand
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U.S.-based Siebel Systems Inc, the No. 1 provider of sales and customer service software, said on Wednesday it continued to see demand for its products in Asia despite shrinking technology spending.
"We continue to see very real interest, very real evaluations by customers across the region, as companies focus on increasing efficiency in their operations," Terence Chan, regional managing director for South Asia, told reporters at a briefing on customer relationship management (CRM) organized by research consultants Frost & Sullivan.
Chan said a few companies with "guts and wallet" were doing enterprise-wide deployment of Siebel's solutions. But due to the weak economic outlook and the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States, most companies were cautious.
"Some of these companies are choosing to start small, by deploying our solutions only in their services or sales and marketing divisions, but the fact that they are choosing to start is already a positive sign," Chan added. In 2001, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for about six percent of Siebel's total revenues of $2.05 billion. For the January to March quarter, it grew to 10 percent, Chan said.
In June, Siebel's chief financial officer Ken Goldman gave a gloomy assessment of corporate tech spending in the April to June quarter, noting the information technology environment was every bit as, if not more, challenging than in the same quarter of 2001.
Siebel will release its second quarter results by the end of this month.
Although companies have slashed their tech spending, Frost & Sullivan director Manoj Menon said purchases of customer service and sales software remained high on the priority list.
"There is still continued demand for CRM," he added. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Asia-Pacific market for sales and customer service software is slated to grow to $377 million in 2002 and $561.8 million in 2003 from $254.2 million in 2001.
This figure is expected to swell to $2.1 billion by 2008, with Japan remaining the top revenue contributor.
In 2001, Siebel had the dominant 33.4 percent share of the Asia-Pacific market, up from 19.6 percent in 2000.
Europe's biggest software group SAP held 18.6 percent, U.S.-based PeopleSoft had 5.9 percent and the world's No. 2 software company, Oracle Corp, took 5.1 percent.
Siebel shares ended 5.9 percent lower at $12.57 in New York on Tuesday. The stock has lost more than 55 percent since the start of the year.
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