MILAN (AIMnews.it) - The Board of Directors of Expert System approved the Group's consolidated financial statements and the draft financial statements as of31 December 2019.

Stefano Spaggiari, CEO of Expert System, said: "We are satisfied with the significant growth in 2019 in both our turnover - Euro 31.6million - up by more than 10%, and in the value of production, equal to Euro 39.7 million, with EBITDA at Euro 5.5 million and a more than 17% marginality. Along with the constant development of our Artificial Intelligence platform, which proved to be a top platform in the world scenario, we acquired new prestigious customers. The strengthening of our partnership program and of the indirect channel was another important part of our expansion and rationalization strategy, which is being pursued precisely at a time when the market for cognitive solutions is 1Sales net of change in inventories progressively maturing, both in Europe and in the USA. The sale of ADmantX, at 8X of its turnover, further gave evidence of the value that can be created with cutting-edge technology like ours, and also in an international context, given the prestigious American buyer with which the transaction was concluded. It is difficult to tell how long the health emergency will last. We can confirm we are fully operational thanks to our business model and smart working, already used before the government regulations came into force, as well as our commitment to constant growth and development."

Walt Mayo, Expert System Group CEO, said: “Our strong performance in 2019 is evidence of the strength of our team, the depth of our technology, and the value that our customers see in practical AI that works to solve real business problems. Across a range of industries, we demonstrated our unmatched experience in applying AI to the language of business to accelerate speed, handle scale, and augment insight for our customers. We worked as true partners with our customers by offering deep industry domain expertise in our people and technology. And in a world where AI is becoming increasingly complex, we brought an approach that puts our customers in charge with outcomes they understand and a platform they can shape to their needs. We’re extraordinarily excited about the opportunity ahead as more and more enterprises realize the value of applying our AI-based solutions to the explosion of language-based data. We will continue to focus relentlessly on developing practical, explainable AI that delivers value for our customers and that is informed with real-world insights about how businesses actually work and how people communicate through language. We will also continue to expand and simplify our reach with enhanced API’s, scalable cloud offerings, and intuitive management tools. And we will build the depth and presence of our team to serve our customers’ emerging needs and to grow rapidly across key markets, particularly in the US. Expert System is uniquely positioned to become the partner of choice for enterprises in this fast-growing segment of the AI market and we have the team and the technology that is equal to the opportunity."

Revenues from sales grew by 10.1% to approximately Euro 31.6million, compared to Euro 28.7 million in 2018. In particular, 61% of revenues are represented by licenses and maintenance, 36% by professional services and 3% by a residual portion of other services. Sales growth continues for recurring licenses which in 2019 represent 76% of the new licenses sold (in 2017 were 40%). As for the breakdown by geographical areas, the foreign component of revenues is equal to 54%, of which 24% were generated in the US market and 30% in Europe, especially in the UK, Germany and France thanks to the reorganization activities of recent years.

Significant was also the contribution of the indirect channel (10% of revenues) through our partnership program that was strengthened in April also by introducing an e-learning platform with which a larger number of professionals received training on Expert System's artificial intelligence technology and products. Value of Production grew by 11.9% to Euro 39.7 million, compared to Euro 35.5 million in 2018. EBITDA was equal to Euro 5.5 million, posting a 17.7% increase compared to Euro 4.6 million as of 31 December 2018, with a 17.3% EBITDA margin thanks to the mix of growth in revenues, value of production and cost optimization management.