Israeli business software solutions company NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) has reported revenue growth in its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2020 and sees accelerated growth in 2021.
Despite the strong results, investors appear disappointed and the company's share price is down 8% in premarket trading on Nasdaq, where it has a market cap of $16.8 billion. Ra'anana-based NICE provides telephone voice recording, data security, surveillance, and robotic process automation as well as systems that analyze recorded data so that organizations can improve customer experience and business results, and ensure compliance. The company's share price rose 83% in 2020 but has fallen 3.8% in 2021. NICE is the most valuable company on the TASE and the fourth most valuable Israeli company on Wall Street.
Revenue in the fourth quarter was $435 million, up 8% from the fourth quarter of 2019. The cloud sector led the way with revenue rising 31.2% to $219 million, while revenue fell in other products and services. In full year 2020 revenue was $1.65 billion, up 5% from 2019.
GAAP net profit in the fourth quarter was $55 million, down from $61.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. GAAP net profit in 2020 was $196 million, up from $186 million in 2019.
Non-GAAP net profit in the fourth quarter of 2020 was $107 million, up 4.1% from the fourth quarter of 2019, and non-GAAP net profit in 2020 was $378 million, up 10.1% from 2019. Earnings per share in the fourth quarter was $1.61, beating the analysts' expectations of $1.55.
In guidance, the company sees revenue of $445-455 million in the first quarter of 2021, above the analysts' expectations of $435 million. But the non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.42-1.52 is closer to the higher range of the analysts' expectations of $0.50 per share.
In all of 2021, NICE sees revenue of $1.79-1.81 billion, 8.6% growth from 2020 at the midway point. The company sees earnings per share between $6.12 and $6.32, with the analysts' expectations at $6.31.
NICE CEO Barak Eilam said, "We are pleased to report another exceptional year at NICE highlighted by groundbreaking innovation and speed of execution in cloud, digital and artificial intelligence. We witnessed accelerated cloud growth, cloud exceeded more than 50% of our total revenue for the second half of the year, and we exited 2020 with more than $900 million in an annualized cloud revenue run rate propelled by the tremendous success of our CXone cloud platform. We saw a 100% year-over-year increase in our customers’ digital interactions volume and 50% of our new deals were driven by digital initiatives. Our market leading AI solution, Enlighten, experienced strong demand with many new deals and a fast growing pipeline."
He added, "2021 is shaping up to be a year of a changed reality, in which the events of 2020 have created a new normal, and at the same time provided new opportunities in cloud and digital. Enterprises are seeking to rapidly accelerate their innovation cycles and leap forward much faster than before while continuously adapting to changes. We are well-positioned to capitalize on this transition with our leading digital cloud platforms together with a large and fast growing total addressable market."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 18, 2021
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