Unisys Federal provides bright spot for company results
By
Nick Wakeman
Unisys Federal provided a bright spot in third quarter results for the company as biometrics and security solutions drive growth.
Unisys Corp. is still working toward a return to overall growth and its U.S. federal business is one of the bright spots.
In their third quarter earnings call with investors Tuesday, Unisys executives described how the federal business is one of two company segments with revenue growth. The other is the financial sector.
Down are the commercial and public sector segments. In this instance, public sector is Unisys' non-U.S. federal government business.
Unisys Federal is not growing gangbusters -- it is up 1 percent over the same quarter last year -- but Unisys executives said that group is poised for more growth going forward.
“We are pleased with our federal services backlog, which is at its highest level in over eight years,” CEO Peter Altabef said in the call.
Federal business accounted for 21 percent of the $666.3 million in total revenue that Unisys reported in the quarter ended Sept. 30.
Some high points for the federal business included several sales of Unisys Stealth security software product.
In working with a partner, Unisys won a contract for a Stealth pilot with the Navy and its data center environment, Altabef said.
Another highlight of the quarter was an expansion in the scope of work Unisys Federal is doing with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The new work includes providing biometric solutions to identify non-U.S. citizens departing from airports and land pedestrian checkpoints.
An unnamed U.S. security agency also picked Stealth as an architectural element to integrate biometric identifiers to address what Altabef called a “key security need.”
The growth in federal came despite how late the fiscal 2017 appropriations were passed, which caused the delay in signing new contracts, Altabef said.
Unisys executives also are pleased with the quality of the work being won in federal.
“Our renewals in federal and our extensions and scope increases in federal are high margin business for us, chief financial officer Inder Singh told investors.
“So we’re trying to maintain the discipline around signing, I’ll call it, not empty calorie business, but good calorie business," Singh said.