Global Sources 2010 revenues up 11% to US$194 mil

NASDAQ-listed, Hong Kong-based Global Sources released its full year results today and its exhibitions business took centre stage. Revenues in 2010 were US$194 million - up 11% over 2009's results. After hitting a high of US$207 million in 2008, revenues were US$175 million in 2009.

The company's exhibition business drove the growth last year leaping 26% rising from US$55 million in 2009 to US$69.5 million in 2010. Exhibitions now account for 36% of total revenues. This is an impressive achievement considering its exhibition revenues were negligible in 2003.

Online revenues account for just under 50% of revenues. Online revenues were US$93.9 million in 2010 - up from US$85.4 million in 2009. That is a 10% increase.

Unsurprisingly, print continued to slip away falling 14% from US$30 million to US$25.8 million. Print now accounts for just 13% of Global Sources' total revenues.

Overall, these are very solid results and with new exhibitions in 2011 in Miami and Xiamen and recent additions in 2010 in Singapore and South Africa, it should be expected that Global Sources' exhibition revenues will continue to head upwards.

Online revenues should also continue to be strong with important metrics such as requests for information (RFIs) up 26% to 127 million in 2010. RFIs are essentially inquiries from buyers to suppliers listed on Global Sources. Additionally, the company's registered buyer community grew by over 16% in 2010 reaching 1 million.

GAAP net income in 2010 was US$21.6 million. That is a 35% increase compared with 2009 (US$16 million). This is still lower than the company's net income in 2008 (US$26 million). Its PE ratio is about 15 now. That is positively reasonable compared with Alibaba.com's PE of 60 - although they are very different businesses now.

Guidance for the first half of 2011 is revenues of between US$102.5 million and US$103.5 million. That would be a 9%-10% increase over the results in the first half of 2010.

Cash and equivalents on hand was US$101.3 million. Total current assets were down from US$181.6 million in 2009 to US$135.6 million in 2010. This may be in part due to the company's 11 million share buyback programme last summer.

In the past year, shares have traded from a low of US$6.20 up a high of almost US$12 in February. Shares closed yesterday at US$9.86.