Govt, telco deals buoy Sun Philippines' revenues
PHILIPPINES--Major deals from the government and several multimillion dollar-contracts from the local telecommunications sector helped lift revenues for Sun Microsystems' Philippine operations (SunPhil) by 56 percent in its latest fiscal year.
In a recent media briefing, the local office of the technology giant said the year-on-year 56 percent growth is a significant increase from last year's 47 percent.
The IT vendor, however, declined to give earnings or profit figures specific to its Philippine operations, in its fiscal year, ended July 2007.
According to company officials, SunPhil has already secured substantial deals with the government's Bureau of Internal Revenues, and is poised to announce another deal with the country's Department of Trade and Investments (DTI).
Cynthia R. Mamon, SunPhil president and managing director declined to disclose details of the DTI contract, noting only that "we will announce the deal very soon". Mamon added that SunPhil is one of only a selected handful of large multinational vendors that have bagged significant contracts from the public sector.
She also clarified that SunPhil is not participating in the government's national broadband network project, which is currently under intense scrutiny.
Envisioned to connect all government agencies and offices across the Philippines, the national broadband network initiative was shrouded in controversy when the contract to build the infrastructure was apparently awarded without a public bid.
Calling in telco deals
SunPhil's yearly revenues were also boosted by contracts with local telecommunications players Smart Communications, involving a data warehousing product, and Globe Telecom, where the deal included a contract for the G-Cash mobile payment system.
Worldwide, Sun reported revenues of US$3.84 billion for the full fiscal year, an increase of 6.2 percent from last year's figures. Net income for the fourth quarter reached US$329 million, according to the company, while full-year net income reached US$473 million.
Sun President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz said in the statement that the company's latest financial results "marks significant progress" toward achieving at least 10 percent operating margin for fiscal year 2009.
But while Sun celebrated its latest annual results, the IT vendor just last week announced it will cut its workforce to "better align the company's resources with its strategic business objectives". Sun currently has over 34,200 employees worldwide.
Also, last week, it officially launched its new UltraSparc T2 microprocessor--dubbed Niagara 2--which Sun said has seen significant success after the processor architecture was made open source last year.
Joel D. Pinaroc is a freelance IT writer based in the Philippines.