Expert Systems Announces FY25 Interim Results
Actively Responds to Market Challenges Demonstrates Strong Business Resilience
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(26 November 2024, Hong Kong) Expert Systems Holdings Limited (“Expert Systems” or the “Group”; Stock Code: 8319), a leading technology and innovation company in the Asia-Pacific region, today announced the unaudited interim results of the Company and its subsidiaries (the “Group”) for the six months ended 30 September 2024 (the “Reporting Period”). During the Reporting Period, the Group actively responded to market challenges and achieved an increase in gross profit margin despite the downward adjustment in business volume, demonstrating its strong business resilience.
During the Reporting Period, the Group recorded revenue of approximately HK$437.2 million. Gross profit amounted to HK$70.9 million, and profit for the year was HK$7.1 million. The market environment remained uncertain due to factors such as the global economic slowdown and the ongoing Sino-US competition. Nevertheless, the Group actively addressed the market challenges by optimizing its product mix and implementing effective cost-management measures. As a result, its gross profit margin increased from 14.6% in the same period last year to 16.2% during the Reporting Period, underscoring its unwavering business resilience.
Mr. Andy Lau, CEO and Executive Director of Expert Systems, said: “Recognizing that the macro environment has been impacted by numerous uncertainties, we have not only made efforts to address challenges, but also adjusted our strategies and optimized our costs. In operating our product lines, we have focused our resources on businesses with high growth potential, including cybersecurity, automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and managed services. Through the close cooperation between our subsidiaries, we have been able to realize their respective advantages and provide comprehensive, one-stop solutions to meet the diverse needs of customers. This horizontal development has helped us to integrate the strengths of various business segments, which has not only enabled us to provide customers with high-value-added integrated solutions, but also enhanced our competitive advantage and laid a solid foundation for our business growth. While optimizing our product portfolio, we have also maintained effective capital allocation, focused on profit margin improvement, and actively responded to the changing business environment.”
BUSINESS REVIEW
IT Infrastructure Solutions
The Group has continued to provide world-class IT infrastructure solutions to corporate and institutional customers to meet their needs. In light of the frequent occurrence of cybersecurity incidents in recent years, the Group is committed to deploying appropriate cybersecurity solutions to safeguard its customers’ valuable IT assets. Additionally, in response to customers’ strong demand for automation, the Group also provides a wide range of IT infrastructure solutions that align with market trends and the surging demand. Among them, AI can comprehensively assist customers with business automation. To this end, the Group has developed a series of Generative AI (“GenAI”) applications and now offers a one-stop service that encompasses everything from infrastructure to GenAI applications, thereby eliminating any deployment and maintenance support concerns for customers. At this stage, the Group will prioritize allocating resources to two business growth engines of cybersecurity and automation (including AI). This focus aims to enhance its product portfolio and technical support, committed to providing customers with more valuable and comprehensive solutions, thereby driving business growth.
IT Infrastructure Management Services
The Group anticipates growth in demand for IT infrastructure management services throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The Group’s service desk centers in Guangzhou and Kuala Lumpur provide IT outsourcing, help desk and other services to corporate and institutional customers, supporting over 60,000 incidents each month in seven languages. To address new demand, the Group plans to relocate the Guangzhou service desk center to a new facility and expand its capacity. Furthermore, the Group aims to extend its offerings to managed professional services (MPS), including a Network Operation Center (NOC) and Security Operation Center (SOC). All the above are expected to be completed by the first half of 2025. The service desk centers in both locations will create synergies, effectively balancing resources across regions and providing flexible services to customers, which further enhance the Group’s ability to meet the diverse customer needs. In addition, in response to the rising number of cybersecurity incidents, the Group has increased its resources to provide comprehensive cybersecurity consulting services, aiming to help customers proactively prevent cybersecurity incidents.
AI Business
The Group continues to boost its GenAI business and has successfully developed a series of GenAI products based on cloud or on-premises large language models (“LLM”) for its corporate and institutional customers. The GenAI product series, namely ChatSeries, which includes ChatEnquiry, ChatMinutes and ChatSerivceDesk, offering a variety of functionalities to meet customer needs. Benefiting from the accelerated development of the AI ecosystem in Hong Kong, the Group has received a significant number of inquiries from clients, indicating the strong market demand. This sector is expected to be one of the key drivers in new business growth for the Group.
Mr. Lau concluded: “As we enter 2025, Expert Systems will celebrate its 40th anniversary. The two core businesses of IT infrastructure solutions and IT infrastructure management services, as the cornerstones of Expert Systems, provide us with a solid foundation in a volatile market environment, while allowing us to actively develop new AI businesses. Looking ahead, Expert Systems will continue to focus on implementing strategic initiatives, including optimizing product portfolio and cost management, and continue to invest in technological research and development. We will actively respond to market challenges, strive to create value for shareholders and stakeholders, and drive the company to achieve sustainable growth.”
Read the announcement of the detailed results here: https://www.expertsystems.com.hk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/EW08319-IR24.pdf
Highlights:
- Revenue for the six months ended 30 September 2024 (the “Reporting Period”) decreased by approximately 15.5% from that for the six months ended 30 September 2023 (the “Corresponding Period”) to approximately HK$437.2 million.
- Gross profit for the Reporting Period decreased by approximately 6.0% from the Corresponding Period to approximately HK$70.9 million.
- Profit for the period attributable to owners of the Company for the Reporting Period decreased by approximately 16.2% to approximately HK$6.6 million as compared to the Corresponding Period.
- Basic earnings per share decreased by approximately 16.3% from approximately HK0.98 cent for the Corresponding Period to approximately HK0.82 cent for the Reporting Period.