SAS, the leader in business intelligence and analytics, has announced global revenues of $2.26 billion in 2008, which reflects a 5.1 percent increase over the company's 2007 figures. The company's growing network of alliance and channel partners has played an integral role in 28 percent of sales and almost half of the top 50 global deals. With aims of further strengthening its regional presence, SAS Middle East has revealed its plans to highlight its recession-fighting solutions, as it eyes 23 percent overall growth in the Middle East for 2009. Driven by the challenging economic climate, companies turned to SAS' market-leading business analytics to derive money-saving and money-making insights from ever-growing volumes of data. As a result, SAS Middle East has seen significant growth in analytic and data mining solutions that help organizations keep current customers and win new ones, manage risk and optimize processes. The company also achieved strong sales growth in multiple industries, led by energy and utilities, Financial Services, and Telecommunication. “We have globally achieved our 33rd year of continuous revenue growth, and all this during the worst economic situation most can remember,” said Shukri Dabaghi, general manager, SAS Middle East. “This growth is a direct result of being a stable privately held company, which allows us to invest in long-term relationships with employees and customers. Our performance in some of the hardest hit economies affirms that the world and the Middle East in particular, now more than ever, need analytics to provide answers to complex business problems in order to innovate and lead with confidence.” In 2008, SAS gained 2,600 new customers from around the world, and reinvested 22 percent of this revenue in research and development. SAS maintains an impressive lineup of regional clients such as Saudi Aramco, Riyad Bank, Saudi American Bank, NCB, HSBC and King Saud University, among others.
