A boost in R&D spending helped the British CAM software vendor move up one spot in the CIMdata rankings.

British CAM software vendor Delcam has reported the company’s 2009 results. Sales were down compared to 2008, but it was still the second-best year in the company’s history.

Revenue in 2009 was £31.8 million ($48.2 million), down 3% from 2008 and 7% higher than sales in 2007. Revenue from maintenance grew 10%  year-over-year, to £10.7 million ($16.2 million). Maintenance now accounts for 34% of Delcam sales.

Delcam chose to slightly raise 2009 R&D and marketing expenditures from their 2008 level. R&D spending was £9.2 million ($13.9 million) in 2009. The company credits the decision as helping it to move up the global ranking of developers of NC software and services (by revenue) to third place in 2009, from fourth place in 2008 in the CIMdata rankings.

Pre-tax net profit was down in 2009 at £1.1 million ($1.67 million) compared with £2.3 million ($3.5 million) in 2008.

Cash per share on December 31, 2009 was $110.34. Only AVEVA, another British company we cover, has a cash per share figure this high among the companies we cover.

The Final Analysis
British public companies are held to higher standards regarding shareholder value than US-based firms. The British technology firms we follow routinely pay dividends, while their American counterparts almost never pay them. Delcam is doing well in CAM by aggressively pursuing technical innovation. If we published every announcement they make about new products and features, we’d have to rename this news site to the Delcam Report. §