Gartner Upbeat Despite Sharp Revenue Drop

Despite reporting a 22% fall in revenue to $270m for the second quarter, US technology research firm Gartner is reiterating its full-year outlook.

For the period, research revenue dropped 7% to $184m from $198m, and contract value was $736m - a decrease of 3% year-on-year.

For the consulting segment, revenue fell 27% to $69m, and revenue from events dived 67% to $16m. The firm said this reflected cutting its event program from 25 in Q2 2008, to 14 events in the last quarter.

Net income fell 43% to $17m from $29m a year earlier, and operating income dropped 35% to $30m.

CEO Gene Hall said that during the second quarter, the divisions had performed in-line with expectations.

'As compared to the first quarter, we increased new business in research, added significantly more new clients, improved sales force productivity and saw improvement in the trends that drive wallet retention,' said Hall. 'Based on these trends, we expect contract value to grow sequentially in the second half of the year, primarily in the fourth quarter, and we expect to quickly resume revenue and earnings growth once global economic activity returns to more normal levels.'

Yesterday, Gartner shares were down 1% at $17.31 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Web site: www.gartner.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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