FPT prevails Covid-19 with double-digit growth

At the end of 2020, FPT’s revenue and pre-tax profit reached VND29,830 billion and VND5,261 billion, respectively, up 7.6% and 12.8% on year. Earnings per share rose to VND4,119 a share, up 12.3% on-year.

Such results came as part of FPT’s quick adaptation to the instability of the economy, by shifting all activities from “peacetime- to wartime-like”, while insisting on safeguarding the corporate financial health, ensuring a stable cash flow, cutting down operations that did not generate revenue or create efficiency in the short term, and predominantly focusing on core technology investment. Moreover, FPT also paid great attention on searching and seizing new opportunities. At the same time, the group turned more flexible and creative in the working procedures and in the interaction with partners and customers. And last but not least, FPT promoted the sales of solution-based services and products, as well as digital transformation platforms, to help global customers improve productivity, save costs, overcome crises and achieve breakthrough in the new normal.

IT leading the game

Breaking down FPT’s revenue structure, the IT sector contributed some 56 per cent with VND16,805 billion, an increase of 6.5 per cent on-year. Meanwhile, the telecommunications accounted for 39 per cent, with VND11,466 billion, an up of 10.3 per cent. And education and other investments took up the remaining five per cent of the total revenue.

With regard to the IT sector, due to the strong growth in the demand for digital transformation investment on a global scale, revenue from the newly-signed contracts added up to VND13,095 billion, an increase of 23 per cent on-year. The number of customers with revenue over USD500,000 rose nearly 19 per cent while the number of projects with the scale of millions of dollars increased 38.5 per cent on-year.

Digital transformation, the strategic business activity at FPT, as the result, recorded a whooping revenue growth of 31 per cent, from VND2,453 billion in 2019 to VND 3,219 billion in 2020.

For the telecommunications sector, thanks to good cost control and optimisation of new services including PayTV, the profit margin of the sector improved remarkably. In particular, pre-tax profit margin of the broadband services is nearly 20 per cent while other services’ is 12 per cent.

Revenue from the education sector, on the other hand, soared 22 per cent on-year. The average number of students on record in 2020 reached 52,005, up 30.4 per cent on-year.

Big gain overseas

IT services revenue and pre-tax profit from the overseas markets reached VND12 trillion and VND1,970 billion, respectively, representing an up of 10.6 per cent and 14.4 per cent on-year. Markets like Japan and APAC, in particular, recorded high revenue growth of nine per cent and 28 per cent.

2020 marked a great transformation for FPT itself when the group affirmed its position as the leading technology company in Vietnam in the international arena, evident in numerous comprehensive and large-value digital transformation consultancy contracts signed with large-sized enterprises. Winning against hundreds of well-known IT companies, FPT accordingly became the number-one priority partner of a leading automobile company in the US, with a contract worth some $150 million. In addition, the group secured a $200-million contract for digital transformation consulting and implementation at the Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Malaysia) and became a strategic technology partner for the world’s largest beverage company in Japan, with potential revenue of up to $100 million.

During the year, FPT also expanded globally with four new branches opened in Canada, the Middle East, India and Costa Rica, bringing the total number of abroad offices to 52 in 25 countries and territories. The expansion represents the group’s prompt response to customer needs in key regions such as the US and Asia-Pacific, and subsequently the remaining parts of the world.

At home, FPT’s revenue summed up to VND4,805 billion, a slight decrease of 2.6 per cent on-year, yet pre-tax profit still rose approximately 7 per cent to VND267 billion. This was the result of cost reduction, utilising common resources between departments, limiting outsourcing, while increasing cross-selling and designing overall solution packages to help customers overcome difficulties and recover in the pandemic.