Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator instructions) Our first question is from David Koning of Robert W. Baird. You may ask your question.
David Koning – Robert W. Baird
First of all, I just wanted to pursue Q4. I guess Q4 revenue last year was $984 million. And you expect growth, I guess flat to up 2% year-over-year. So that implies a pretty good sequential ramp and I am just wondering – I guess what your thoughts are around that. It looks like about a 4% sequential ramp, is a little more than typical.
Jeff Yabuki
That is a good question. The first thing is, in our payments segment, as you look back in the last year, it also had a sequential ramp and the primary purpose of that is the Personix business, which is in our payments segment, is very seasonal with very strong Q1 and Q4 performance and that will continue again this year. It is just very seasonal from that standpoint. So there is a large amount of revenue that hits Q4 and Q1 in that particular business and I think you will see that historically, and that is a big driver of that particular growth.
Tom Hirsch
In addition, Dave, we continue to see very solid progressive ramps in our payments businesses as well as an expectation of some license sales coming together in the fourth quarter. Just based on the pipeline that we have seen, we have some reasonable visibility, we feel pretty good about those numbers.
David Koning – Robert W. Baird
Okay, that is great to hear. And then I guess secondly, the Q4 growth of the flat to up 2%, is there anything I guess in this quarter that would be different or any comp issues that wouldn’t allow that same type of growth to continue into next year and I guess maybe even get a little better, because I think some of the comp issues get a little easier even into 2010?
Tom Hirsch
No, I think, Dave, the – you know, I am not aware I can comment on 2010, besides the fact I did mention it, we had a lot of one-time items clearly that negatively impacted us from an environment standpoint, one of those, be it termination fees, currency et cetera. But again, to Jeff's earlier point, as we look into the fourth quarter, we are forecasting 0% to 2% growth, that is on a base of above $1 billion of revenue, and every 1% is roughly about $10 million of revenue. And clearly, in our payments segment, we had some license fees that were short of last year by about $10 million, which was about 2% and those can move around on a quarter-to-quarter, we are seeing a lot more of that obviously in the current year, just given the environment.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
