Autodesk reported excellent results from the A/E/C sector for Q4 2010

On February 24, 2011, after the market closed, Autodesk issued a Press Release about its Q4 2010 and Full-year 2010 results.

Reprographers, consider what Autodesk said in these two paragraphs, which appeared in that Press Release:

"We closed the year with solid momentum and double-digit quarterly revenue growth in all of our geographies and all of our business segments," said Carl Bass, Autodesk president and CEO. "We're seeing a global increase in demand for 3D design, engineering, and entertainment tools. Demand for our Inventor software helped deliver record quarterly revenue in our Manufacturing segment, and record quarterly sales of our Revit family of products led to strong growth in our Architecture, Engineering and Construction segment."

“Revenue from the Platform Solutions and Emerging Business segment was $181 million, an increase of 10 percent compared to the fourth quarter last year and an increase of 5 percent sequentially. Revenue from the Architecture, Engineering and Construction business segment was $162 million, an increase of 18 percent compared to the fourth quarter last year and 19 percent sequentially. Revenue from the Manufacturing business segment was a record $133 million, an increase of 23 percent compared to the fourth quarter last year and 14 percent sequentially. Revenue from the Media and Entertainment business segment was $52 million, an increase of 12 percent compared to the fourth quarter last year and 3 percent sequentially.”

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Joel’s comment:

I personally think that this is very clear evidence that A/E/C industry firms are feeling more confident about business conditions going forward. Autodesk’s AutoCAD and REVIT products are the most popular, most widely used CAD and BIM software products in the U.S., at least with respect to firms in the A/E/C sector. If A/E/C firms were not feeling more confident, they would not be investing in new software. Coupled with reports from the AIA about the AIA ABI Index being above 50, three out of the five past months, and “even” at 50 last month (the January 2011 ABI Index was right at 50), that makes it four out of five months where the Index was not below 50. If the AIA Economics guy, Kermit Baker, is right about his assessment about the lag-time between the Index going positive (50 or above) and A/E firms actually experiencing greater amounts of project work from their clients, then it looks like A/E firms should be showing growth sometime within the next 5 to 6 months. Later on, the GC community will feel that. So, where we earlier opined that business for reprographers would be better towards the 2^nd half of 2011 than will be the case during the 1^st half of 2011, we’re still holding to that opinion.