Financial Performance Scorecard, First Quarter 2004: Startling Strength

Outsell predicted a strong 2004 for the content industry, but even we were surprised at the 15.5 percent revenue growth spike turned in by the companies in the Outsell 100 Company Monitor(SM) in the first quarter of 2004. Any way you look at them, the numbers clearly describe a content industry that charged out of the chute in 2004 with a roar, setting the stage for a strong growth year. This Briefing identifies winners and losers in the Outsell 100 and the underlying success factors. Younger companies continue to excel, and winning segments include the General Aggregators, Distributors & Services sector that contains aggregators Yahoo!, Google, FindWhat, LookSmart and Ask Jeeves, and the Content Software Technology players led by OpenText, Interwoven, Adobe, and Autonomy. The Briefing ranks the Outsell 100 companies by revenue, operating income margin, and revenue gain. The highest priority we hear from information industry vendors is finding new sources of growth. This Briefing shows winning companies finding it by solidly executing strategy; using partnerships (Yahoo!, FindWhat); capturing additional market share (Ask Jeeves, Apollo Group); expanding successful product and service lines (Corporate Executive Board); and generating productivity and cost savings (Autonomy).