ST. LOUIS, Jan. 21 -- Amdocs Limited (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies) today reported that for the first quarter ended December 31, 2003, revenue was $428.3 million, representing sequential growth of 4.0% and an increase of 26.2% from last year's first quarter. Excluding acquisition-related costs and other items and related tax effects, net income was $57.0 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, and increased by $13.5 million, or 31.0%, when compared to net income of $43.5 million, or $0.20 per diluted share, in the first quarter of fiscal 2003. The Company's GAAP net income, which includes acquisition-related charges for amortization of purchased intangible assets, and, for the first quarter of fiscal 2003 only, a restructuring charge, and related tax effects for all the aforementioned items, was $53.1 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, compared to net income of $32.2 million, or $0.15 per diluted share, in the first quarter of fiscal 2003.
 
Dov Baharav, Chief Executive Officer of Amdocs Management Limited, said, "This was a very good quarter for Amdocs. We are seeing a continued improvement in the market, with carriers showing a greater readiness to commit to new projects. We achieved strong sales in all sectors, including billing, CRM and order management, in both the wireline and mobile markets. Our market leadership, based on our unique ability to deliver integrated customer management, positions us well to capitalize on the upturn in the market. The communications industry continues to face challenges. However, we are confident that we can leverage the current improvement in the market to achieve modest sequential growth in the coming quarters."
 
Sales Highlights
 
During the first quarter, our new business included nine new key wins, highlighted below. This is a significant increase over previous quarters.

• Telkom South Africa will standardize on Amdocs as its core platform for integrated customer management. This project involves the extension of our relationship, adding order management and upgrading existing Amdocs billing and CRM implementations.
• Amdocs was chosen by a major wireline customer in North America to implement Amdocs order management. The system will handle complex ordering covering all needs for new generation data services.
• A European mobile communications service provider decided to implement Amdocs partner relationship management. The system will be used for billing and settlement with content partners.
• An existing customer in Europe, a major mobile provider, selected Amdocs to implement a system to support the special and complex needs of the corporate customers sector.
• Amdocs has been chosen by a major mobile carrier in North America to implement its ClarifyCRM suite. This operator, which currently utilizes our billing system, will be leveraging Amdocs unique value proposition for integrated customer management.
• A leading mobile communications carrier in North America, currently using the Amdocs billing platform, will be implementing the Amdocs Enabler product to support billing of new generation data and voice services.
• Through sales of ClarifyCRM products, we obtained initial projects at three additional communications service providers. Two of these carriers are in Europe, and the third carrier is in the Asia Pacific region. In all cases, these sales also establish or expand our footprint within the operations of key global and regional players.

• Amdocs announced its intention to acquire XACCT Technologies, a leading provider of network mediation software to communications service providers. This acquisition further expands the scope of Amdocs billing capabilities in the network mediation space providing the unique capability for supporting end-to-end event processing for voice, data, content and commerce prepaid and postpaid transactions. Amdocs will acquire XACCT's outstanding shares for approximately $29.5 million, subject to certain adjustments, of which approximately $13.5 million will be paid in cash and the balance in Amdocs Ordinary Shares. This acquisition is due to be completed in the second quarter of fiscal 2004.
• Amdocs executed a share buyback program involving the re-purchase of five million shares, for a total value of approximately $124 million. One of the main objectives of the buyback program was to offset the dilutive effect of any future share issuances, including issuances pursuant to employee equity plans or in connection with acquisitions.
• The Amdocs managed services agreement with Dex Media has been extended to include Dex Media West. Under the 5-year agreement, Amdocs will provide IT services to support Dex Yellow Pages, White Pages and DexOnline, including IT application development and maintenance, end-user support and implementation services.
• Amdocs completed the implementation of the Amdocs Enabler product at a mobile operator in Europe, and also at a mobile operator in Latin America. At both customers, the system is now operating in live production.
• Amdocs completed the successful implementation of Amdocs ClarifyCRM 12 at three customers during the quarter. Version 12 includes advanced user interface technology incorporating support for browser-based access, and new functionality designed to transform the high-volume call center into a more efficient and effective, multi-channel customer contact center.
• Free cash flow, defined as cash flow from operations less net capital expenditures and payments on capital leases, was $62.5 million in the quarter.