IPVG revenues drop 11% to P705 million in 6 months

MANILA, Philippines - Publicly-listed technology firm IPVG Corp. posted lower net revenues in the first six months of the year to P705 million, an 11-percent decline from the same period last year.

Company officials explained that the decline was mainly due to the sale of its business process outsourcing unit BPO Teleservices, which would have generated P160 million in revenues, as well as its interest in IP Converge Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, which serves as the counterpart of the former’s managed data services and business solutions unit IP Converge Data Center Inc. in the said country.

Despite the decrease in consolidated group revenue, IPVG’s subsidiaries continued to exhibit strong growth and positive earnings. IPVG’s subsidiaries are into communications (IP services and Internet security), content (online gaming and mobile solutions), and BPO.

“Most of our subsidiaries have performed well on a year-on-year basis. We remain focused on improving our balance sheet and enabling our main subsidiaries for further growth through individual listings on the exchange,” IPVG chief executive officer Enrique Gonzalez said.

Internet security unit Prolexic Technologies generated a 36- percent growth in revenues year-on-year while its sales during the first half reached P350.4 million. Earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for Prolexic reached P62.5 million, a 137-percent rise from the P26.37 million posted in the same period last year.

Officials noted that Prolexic’s focus on the enterprise sector started to yield results during the first half of 2010. The company focused on broadening its business model, expanding to address the needs of global enterprise clients.

Last year, 49 percent of Prolexic’s new business revenue came from enterprise clients, as against only five percent in 2008. This trend continued this year, with the company adding a total of 31 customers and 13 enterprise sector clients as of June 2010.

Meanwhile, IP-Converge generated P250.8 million in revenues for the first half of the year, a two percent decline from the P256.17 million earned last year.

Another subsidiary, IP E-Games, posted P87.95 million in revenues for the January-June 2010 period compared with P114.3 million last year, for a 23 percent decline.

Officials said IP E-Games expects a much stronger performance in the second half due to new titles and higher retail expenditure.

IPVG also reported that its payment services subsidiary I-Pay Commerce Ventures (i-PCV) will activate up to 200 of its merchant partner locations to offer Western Union’s international and domestic money transfer services by yearend, another 300 by end-2011, and another 500 by end-2012.

“We have secured collaborations with global market leaders such as Western Union for our remittance subsidiary and we are very optimistic regarding the prospects of that business,” Gonzalez said.