Siebel Profit Up 161% In Third Quarter

There are information technology vendors who claim the technology market is getting soft. But Siebel Systems Inc. is proof that regardless of what else is happening in the IT market, people are still buying CRM.

The customer-relationship management vendor posted stellar results for the third quarter, with a profit of $71 million, up 161% from $27.3 million in the third quarter last year. It earned 14 cents per share, beating Wall Street estimates of 11 cents. Quarterly revenue was $480.9 million, up 131% from last year. The company has made the spectacular almost mundane, since this is only the latest in a long string of quarters with growth pushing past 100%.

The bulk of the growth came from license revenue, which reached $300.4 million, up 135% from $127.7 million. Maintenance and consulting revenue grew at a slightly slower pace, up 123% to $180.6 million.

Siebel officially passed the billion-dollar mark for the first time, reaching $1.2 billion in revenue for the first nine months of the year. That puts it on a run rate of roughly $2 billion, if its historically strong fourth quarter holds up. For the year so far, it has a profit of $167.4 million.

Siebel also said Tuesday that because of the wintry climate for dot-coms, it's spinning in Sales.com, which it spun off in December as a player in the online sales-force automation tools market. Sales.com should give Siebel a better entrance into low-end CRM shops. Siebel had rounded up $27 million in venture capital, which it will have to pay back.