* Sales and support subscriptions up at Red Hat
Red Hat closed its books on fiscal year 2004 last month, reporting strong sales increases from the same quarter a year ago, and overall for the year compared to fiscal 2003.
For its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended on Feb. 29, Red Hat reported $37 million in sales, a 43% increase from the same quarter a year ago. Red Hat also grew its revenue for the fiscal year by 39% from the previous year, with $126 million in sales. The company also made $5 million in profit in the fourth quarter, up from a $273,000 loss the firm posted in the fourth quarter a year ago.
The company’s fourth-quarter success was driven by subscriptions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux – the yearly charge for Red Hat support, patches and updates for its server and workstation software. Revenue of $25.9 million from subscriptions for the quarter was up almost double from the previous year’s fourth quarter.
New subscriptions were up by 87,000 for the fourth quarter. Red Hat says approximately that 61,000 of the new subscriptions were from enterprises, with 26,000 coming from high performance computing and hosting customers.
Subscription renewals were 90% for the fourth quarter. The company also reported 4,000 new customers in the quarter. (New subscriptions include both new customers, and existing customers renewing, or ordering additional subscriptions, which are required for each server.)
Going forward, Red Hat said it continues to foresee an increase in customer demand for Linux servers, with budding interest in Linux as an alternative desktop platform. Red Hat officials also told TheStreet.com that a re-launch of desktop Linux push was also on the horizon for the company.
