SDL plc, one of the world's leading providers of translation software and services, today announces that profits for the year ended 31 December 2003 are expected to be significantly ahead of market expectations.

 
The company is expecting to be able to report profits before taxation and amortisation of goodwill and intangible fixed assets of not less than £4 million (2002: £1.2 million), versus a market expectation of £2.9 million, and revenues for the full year of approximately £64 million (2002: £58 million) also ahead of analysts' expectations.  The company is expecting to be able to report revenues of £33 million in the second half of the year ended 31 December 2003, some 10% ahead of the comparative period last year.

Commenting on the factors that drove this outperfomance, Mark Lancaster, Chief Executive of SDL said today:

"A combination of factors have led to the Group outperforming earlier expectations.  First, by combining advanced technology with translation and localisation services, we have been able to provide our customers with more cost effective solutions, whilst also improving margins. This also resulted in a faster uptake of our solutions strategy than had been expected.

Second, we have seen larger corporates seeking to consolidate their supplier bases to those that can provide solutions on a global scale - and this plays to our strengths of a truly global infrastructure."