For the fourth quarter, BEA reported revenues of $231.3 million (€265.7m) compared to the $256 million (€294.1m) achieved in the same period a year earlier. However, revenues were 5% higher in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. License revenues also rose on the same basis.

Quarterly net income fell to $10.6 million (€12.2m) compared to $19 million (€21.8m) achieved in the same quarter a year earlier.

Despite the drop in revenues, BEA’s chief financial officer William Klein says that the company had aggressively cut expenditure. Cost of revenues for the fourth quarter fell 16% to $56 million (€64.3m). However, this was offset by a slight rise in operating expenses due to charges BEA was forced to pay after a series of redundancies during 2001.

For the full year, revenues increased to $975.9 million (€1.12bn), from $819.8 million (€941.1m) achieved in fiscal 2001. However, the company posted a net loss of $35.7 (€41m) for fiscal 2002, compared to net income of $17.1 million (€19.6m) in the year before.

However, BEA does not expect an improvement in performance for its current quarter. Chief financial officer Klein expects revenues for BEA’s first quarter to be between $220 million (€252.5m) and $225 million (€258.3m).

Indicating the effects of recent cost-cutting at BEA, Klein expects BEA’s operating margins, meanwhile, to increase from around 5% in its last quarter to between 13% and 14% for the first quarter of 2003.