Thierry Breton, Chairman and CEO said: “The Group globally faced a mixed third quarter resulting in stable revenue. The Divisions Business & Platform Solutions, Big Data & Cybersecurity and Worldline continued to generate sustainable strong growth at the level anticipated at the beginning of the year or even above. Infrastructure & Data Management was disappointing during the quarter in North America and in Germany due to a lack of commercial execution on this segment in these two geographies. Taking this into account, and in the current context of an international economic environment that I anticipate to become more uncertain and challenging, I want to be cautious and therefore we now aim for 2018 revenue organic growth at circa 1% compared to a low end of the bracket at 2% previously.
During the third quarter of the year we worked extensively to close ahead of schedule the acquisition of the US Nasdaq listed Syntel group, and to welcome and integrate its 23,000 engineers into Atos as early as on October 9th. This strategic move will support the acceleration of the Group towards higher levels of technological and digital excellence.”
Q3 2018 revenue by Division
Revenue was € 2,884 million, up +1.8% at constant exchange rates restated for IFRS 15 and +0.1% organically. During the third quarter, the Group continued to deliver its offerings for large customers in their digital transformation. This particularly benefitted to Business & Platform Solutions, Big Data & Cybersecurity, and Worldline.
Infrastructure & Data Management (IDM) revenue was € 1,526 million, -4.6% organically. Majority of the decrease came from the Manufacturing, Retail & Transportation market, more particularly in North America impacted by the termination of Marriott International contract, and in Germany with the decline of Unified Communication & Collaboration activities. The Division was also impacted by the Telecom, Media & Utilities market with the base effect from the BBC contract in the United Kingdom, by contract issues with a large Telco operator in Germany and with the Standard and Poor’s contract ramping-down in North America.
The Division was positively impacted by the ramp-up of the Aviva contract and a strong activity in Public & Health in United Kingdom & Ireland.
The Division continued to roll-out its transformation model with revenue growth in Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud, in Digital Workplace and in Transformation projects. The Division also pursued through automation and robotization the digital transformation of its main clients.
Business & Platform Solutions (B&PS) revenue was € 767 million, up +4.5% at constant scope and exchange rates. The Division pursued the solid trend recorded since the beginning of the year thanks to the strong demand for digital projects related to SAP HANA, Codex, and Hybrid Cloud solutions. The growth was primarily led by Manufacturing, Retail & Transportation, particularly in France with the ramp-up of the PSA contract and in Benelux & the Nordics with deliveries to DSM, and by the public sector in Germany.
Revenue in Big Data & Cybersecurity (BDS) recorded a high organic growth of +11.7%, leading to € 191 million in the third quarter of 2018. This performance was primarily fueled by Manufacturing, Retail & Transportation in North America and by Telecom, Media & Utilities thanks to High Performance Computing activities in South America. In Public & Heath, the activity in cybersecurity was strong through various customers in Benelux & The Nordics, France and Central & Eastern Europe. In this Market, the Division also benefited from the ramp-up of the Swiss National Police contract in Central & Eastern Europe and from strong Big Data activities and Bullion sales in North America, while the activity in France was more challenging.
Worldline revenue was € 399 million, growing by +6.3% at constant scope and exchange rates.
Revenue in Merchant Services was up by +4.8% organically, led primarily by Commercial Acquiring in continental Europe and a solid double-digit growth in India.
Financial Processing revenue was up +7.7% with higher transaction volumes in Issuing Processing, an increased number of authorizations in France and in Germany in Acquiring Processing, and finally from the growing SEPA transactions in Account Payments.
The +5.9% growth in Mobility & e-Transactional Services was mainly led by Contact and Consumer Cloud contracts in France and by Connected Living business in Germany. Growth also benefitted from Trusted Digitization projects with French Government agencies as well as from fare and tax collection services in Latin America.
