Rhipe cracks $196 million, grows Microsoft CSP and licensing business

Cloud specialist distributor rhipe has achieved 25 percent year-on-year revenue growth to hit $196.6 million for the year ending 30 June 2018.

Announcing its unaudited financial year results, the company noted this latest growth spurt was up from its 14.5 percent climb in the previous financial year, having benefited from growth in both its licensing and solutions businesses.

rhipe reported a 70 percent boost in licensing revenue, and growth in its public cloud business under the Microsoft CSP program. The distie now has more than 260,000 Microsoft CSP seats, representing a doubling over the course of the financial year, with revenue CSP revenue said to be in excess of $42 million, compared to $22 million in the previous year.

rhipe reported an unaudited EBITDA of $6.4 million, up 60 percent from its audited $4 million in 2017. Its operating profit was up 54 percent to $7.8 million from $5 million.

rhipe capped off FY2018 by being named Microsoft’s Australian country partner of the year, alongside several other Aussie companies who took out global wins with the vendor.

In June 2017, rhipe was named as a Microsoft globally managed licensing partner, joining just seven other globally managed partners across the world, and the only one based in Asia-Pacific.

“rhipe has forged its own very strong alliance with 1700 Microsoft partners to accelerate cloud-based digital transformation across the nation,” Microsoft Australia one commercial partner director Mark Leigh wrote at the time.

Commenting on the expected FY2018 results, rhipe chief executive Dominic O’Hanlon said: ”The increase in profitability follows a number of years of investment in our Asian footprint and in our public cloud programs, including rhipe’s platform for recurring subscription management, (PRISM).

“We believe that PRISM has now established a leadership position in Asia-Pacific as a platform of choice for pay-as-you-go cloud licensing. rhipe’s investments and our excellent performance in FY18 now provide a strong foundation going into the next financial year.”