Analytics and business intelligence vendor SAS has announced its latest results, recording a 41st consecutive year of growth – every year since the company was founded.
The privately-owned software company, headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, aligns its financial year with the calendar year and has now released its FY2017 results.
The company revealed not only a 1.25% revenue increase from FY2016 but a research and development spend of 26%, proving continuous innovation sustains its market leadership. IDC calculates SAS holds 30.5% of the analytics and predictive insights market, more than twice that of its nearest competitor.
SAS credits its unabating growth to increasing customer demand for artificial intelligence, machine learning, fraud and risk management, and cloud solutions.
{loadposition david08}“The analytics landscape is rapidly changing as organisations find new value in how they use data to gain insights,” said SAS chief executive Jim Goodnight. “We are helping our customers be more competitive with disruptive technologies such as analytics for the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Successfully innovating new technology and ways to help our customers is why we continue to be the company people turn to for unrivalled analytics expertise and business solutions.”
Other highlights:
- The highest growth was observed in Asia Pacific and Latin America.
- Revenue associated with the cloud rose 15%.
- New financial reporting requirements continue drive boosted revenue for SAS credit scoring solutions.
- SAS has enhanced its artificial intelligence portfolio with new products in machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing, enabling faster insights. The focus on making machine learning easy to use and realise quick time to receive value was well-received by SAS customers, contributing to double-digit growth in machine learning within 2017.
To strengthen the alignment between SAS’ product and revenue-generating operations, the company announced as of 1 January that chief technology officer, Oliver Schabenberger, would now also act as chief operating officer.
Looking to 2018, SAS states it will continue heavy investment in embedding artificial intelligence across its portfolio, along with a centre of excellence to help SAS customers understand and apply artificial intelligence in ways that will transform business and the world around us.
Additionally, SAS announced new offerings to come, in managed container services for customer infrastructure in both public and private clouds.
“When it comes to driving the business on data and analytics, everyone has high expectations,” said SAS chief marketing officer Randy Guard. “SAS delivers a platform that addresses the full analytics life cycle – data, discovery and deployment of decisions. Along with the openness that the SAS Platform offers, we enable our customers to bring their data and analytics together across their entire data science community.”