IBM expects lower sales growth this year

JAKARTA (JP): PT Usaha Sistim Informasi Jaya, distributor of IBM's products and services in the country, expects a lower sales growth this year due to the currency crisis.

The company's president Hari Sulistyono said yesterday sluggish cash flows in the last three months had forced the company to revise down the growth target of this year's sales revenue to 38 percent from 25 percent this year.

"Our cash flow has been slowing down in the last two to three months, because buyers who had agreed to purchase had to delay the procurements," Hari said.

He did not disclose the targeted amount of revenue.

He said the company's revenue during this year's first half was very promising, but speculative attacks on the rupiah over the last three months had resulted in lethargic sales.

This was especially noticeable in the company's hardware sales, where buyers had to delay the procurement of its products because of the credit crunch imposed by the government, he said.

"Many companies which were set to upgrade their information technology system had to postpone the actual buying because there was just no money," he said.

The central bank has raised the interest rates of its short- term SBI papers to as high as 30 percent to stabilize the falling rupiah. This has caused deposit and lending rates to skyrocket, making bank loans more expensive.

The rates have been gradually lowered since, but analysts said they were still too high.

The rupiah has dropped by over 25 percent against the U.S. dollar since early July.

The government has also imposed a massive rescheduling program on its own projects or state-related projects to cope with the currency crisis.

Hari said the contribution of IBM's hardware sales to the total revenue had dropped significantly over the years, due to the continuing decline in the products' prices.

Revenue from hardware sales contributed to about 45 percent of the total revenue, while the remaining 55 percent was made up by system services including consultancy, maintenance services and software offered by the company, he said.

"We produce more sophisticated computers in a larger volume now compared to 10 years ago, but the prices have also dropped over those years," he said.

Hari said his company's largest market now was mass customization such as the banking industry's Automatic Teller Machine system and the "one of a kind customer" involving companies with a specialized system such as the state-owned Indonesian National Aircraft Manufacturer, he said.

He said the company catered to 14 sectors in the country, including banking, manufacturing, government, telecommunications and education. (das)