Gartner's CEO Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

With that, I would like to hand the call over to Gartner’s Chief Executive Officer, Gene Hall. Gene?

Eugene Hall

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our quarterly earnings call. For the second quarter of 2012 Gartner once again delivered strong results. On an FX neutral basis, we showed growth across all three of our business segments.

Research, our largest and most profitable segment continued to grow at double-digit rates. Consulting had another solid quarter performance and events continued to exceed our long-term growth targets. Normalized EBITDA was up 16% quarter-over-quarter, and diluted earnings per share was up 34% over second quarter of 2011.

As you’re aware, we’re looking at a tough world economy with economic uncertainty coming from all major geographies. Here in the U.S. unemployment continues to be a challenge. In Europe, the debt crisis remains threatening and in Asia, growth has slowed. Despite this environment, Gartner consistently delivered excellent results across all our businesses.

We’ve achieved double-digit results across all geographies and industries for the past several quarters, and we expect this trend to continue. Our results demonstrate the strength and successful execution of our strategy for growth. Our strategy enables us to continue to capture our substantial market opportunity, which as I’ve stated in the past, we estimate to be at $47 billion. The fundamentals of our strategy are to create extraordinary research insights, to build strong sales capability, to deliver high-value differentiated offerings, to provide world-class service, and to continually improve our operational effectiveness.

IT is complex, continually evolving and remains one of the most important drivers of growth and competitive advantage for virtually every institution in the world. Whether an organization is looking to leverage technology to achieve rapid growth, or looking to manage costs, Gartner is the best resource to turn to for help and our results show it. The Gartner brand is in a class by itself. Our products, services and people are superior to the competition. And we have a successful and attractive business model with high renewal rates, great cash flow and incremental margins. I remain confident and excited about our prospects for sustained double-digit growth over the long term.

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