Annual Report 2009 (1 MB, pdf) - Vasco

Gross Profit
2009 Compared to 2008
Consolidated gross profit for 2009 was $71,160, a decrease of $20,810, or 23%, from the $91,970
reported for 2008. Gross profit as a percentage of revenue (“gross profit margin”) was 70% in 2009, as compared
to 69% in 2008. The increase in the gross profit margin primarily reflects the benefit from:
• An impairment charge in 2008 of $1,276 million related to development costs of a project that did
not result in revenues as expected and a benefit of $390 in 2009 from the release of warranty
reserves that were determined to no longer be needed; and
• An increase in Enterprise and Application Security revenues as a percentage of total revenues;
partially offset by the:
• Impact from the strengthening of the U.S. Dollar compared to the Euro and Australian Dollar;
• Reduction in non-hardware sales as a percentage of revenue; and
• An increase in sales of card readers as a percentage of total revenue.
The impairment charge in 2008 reduced the gross profit margin by 1.0 percentage point.
Revenue from our Enterprise and Application Security markets was 26% of revenue of total full year
2009 compared to 18% of revenue for full year 2008. The gross profit margin from our Enterprise and
Application Security Business is approximately 20 to 25 percentage points higher than in the Banking market
because sales in the Enterprise and Application Security market are generally for lower quantities and higher
prices than in the Banking market. We plan to continue to invest in both the Banking market and the Enterprise
and Application Security market and the overall mix between the two markets will vary in the future based on the
growth rates in each of the markets.
The majority of our inventory purchases are denominated in U.S. Dollars. Also, as previously noted,
our sales are denominated in various currencies including the Euro and Australian Dollar. As the U.S. Dollar has
strengthened, when compared to the Euro and Australian Dollar in the same periods in the prior year, revenue
from sales made in Euros and Australian Dollars decreased, as measured in U.S. Dollars, without a
corresponding decrease in cost of goods sold. The impact from changes in currency rates as noted above is
estimated to have decreased revenue by approximately $2,513 for the full year 2009. Had the currency rates in
2009 been equal to the rates in 2008, the gross profit rate would have been approximately 0.7 percentage points
higher for the year ended December 31, 2009.
Non-hardware revenue, which can have a gross profit margin that is approximately 20 to 30 percentage
points higher than hardware-related revenue, depending on the model and quantity of the hardware units sold,
was 23% of revenue for full year 2009 compared to 25% of total revenue for full year 2008. We plan to continue
to focus on sales of our non-hardware revenue items and expect that they will increase as a percentage of our
total revenue in future periods.
Card readers, which can have a gross profit margin that is approximately 25 to 35 percentage points
lower than other hardware-related margins, due to competitive pricing pressures, were 18% of our revenue for
full year 2009, respectively, compared to 17% for full year 2008. We expect that there will be continued pressure
on the pricing of card readers as there are a number of competitors in the EMV market that produce products
with fewer features than our products and at lower costs.
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