Lightbridge, Inc. Reports Record Fourth Quarter and Annual 1999 Results; 1999 Revenues Up 41.6% - Company Financial Information

Cambridge Telcom Report, Jan 31, 2000

Lightbridge, Inc. (Nasdaq:LTBG), a leading provider of customer acquisition, retention and risk management solutions for the converged telecom market, Tuesday reported financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 1999. Revenues for the fourth quarter were a record $24.3 million, up 26.0% from $19.3 million for the fourth quarter of 1999. Net income for the fourth quarter was a record $4.6 million, or $0.24 per share on a diluted basis, compared to a loss of $6.3 million, or $(0.39) per share on a diluted basis for the quarter ended December 31, 1998. Earnings per share for the quarter and year ended December 31, 1999 included approximately $0.11 per share on a diluted basis resulting from a reduction in the income tax provision to reflect certain changes, including new tax rules concerning net operating loss carryforward utilization and the research credit.

Transaction processing revenues were $19.3 million during the quarter, compared to $14.0 million in the same quarter of 1998, an increase of 37.7%. Software revenues were $3.0 million, up 57.3% from revenues of $1.9 million in the same quarter of 1998. Consulting services revenues were $2.0 million, compared to $3.4 million in the same quarter of 1998, a 40.1% decrease.

Revenues for the year ended December 31, 1999 were a record $89.7 million, up 41.6% from $63.4 million in 1998. Net income for the year was $10.1 million, or $0.56 per share on a diluted basis, compared with a loss of $6.9 million, or $(0.44) per share on a diluted basis, for the year ended December 31, 1998.

Transaction processing revenues were $63.3 million during the year ended December 31, 1999, compared to $41.7 million in 1998, an increase of 52.0%. Software revenues were $13.3 million for the year, up 11.7% from revenues of $11.9 million for 1998. Consulting services revenues were $13.1 million for the year, compared to $9.7 million in 1998, an increase of 34.0%.

Pamela D.A. Reeve, Lightbridge's president and chief executive officer, commented, "Overall, this was another great quarter for Lightbridge capping an outstanding year of increased revenues and earnings. Lightbridge continues to benefit from the worldwide expansion in demand, use and competition in the wireless telecommunications market. Our U.S. transaction processing business reflected a strong seasonal increase in the quarter and significant growth for the year. We saw good growth in our consulting business over the entire year, although as we expected, the fourth quarter was negatively affected by the Y2K distraction. Our software business achieved our modest growth expectations for the year as we continued to expand our product offerings."

Reeve continued, "1999 was a year in which Lightbridge extended its leadership position. We introduced Alias and @Risk , which represent the industry's first integrated front-end to back-end subscription fraud solution. We had significant sales success with Lightbridge's Retail Management System (RMS), with newly launched, regional and major national carrier deployments. We announced Telesto Portal, and have a number of clients in full production with this Web-based offering. We opened our office in Brazil to expand our Latin American presence and obtained four clients for FraudBuster. This activity set the stage for the agreement with CTBC in Brazil to become our first international transaction processing client, a milestone event for the company. The scope of our consulting business expanded during the year to include work with clients on e-store initiatives, wireless data services and converged offerings. In sum, 1999 was a great year for Lightbridge, and puts us in a strong position as we begin 2000."

Quarterly Highlights Since the previous earnings release, Lightbridge issued the following announcements: -- CTBC Cellular will be the first international operator to take advantage of Lightbridge's Customer Acquisition System (CAS).

-- Aerial Communications, Lightbridge's first GSM point-of-sale client, replaced its telecom retail system with Lightbridge's Retail Management System (RMS) in time for retail season.

-- Lightbridge launched Telesto Portal to help carriers leverage credit, activation, risk assessment and fraud screening in their e-commerce offerings.

-- Lightbridge appointed Greg Saltzman as director of operations.

-- The Society for Technical Communication's (STC) Boston and Northern New England chapters awarded Lightbridge its third consecutive set of awards for electronic documentation.

-- Telet, Lightbridge's third Brazilian client, purchased FraudBuster and fraud consulting services as part of its overall fraud prevention strategy.

Lightbridge, Inc. (Nasdaq: LTBG), based in Burlington, Mass., is a leading provider of software, transaction management and consulting services that help telecom carriers quickly acquire customers and retain them over time. Lightbridge has a flexible solution for flow-through provisioning and customer interaction in the converged telecom market. Lightbridge provides a fully integrated workflow and transaction management process for carrier business operations necessary to quickly initiate bundled service offerings to high value, low risk customers. Lightbridge's Telesto, a network of integrated customer acquisition, retention and risk management solutions, leverages these provisioning capabilities with best-in-class credit, fraud, churn, channel and market performance offerings. Lightbridge's clients include ALLTEL Communications, AT&T Wireless Services, CTBC Cellular, Global Telecom, KG Telecom, Omnipoint Communications, Orange plc, Powertel, Sprint PCS, TeleCorp PCS, Telia Telecom A/S, TM Touch, Triton PCS and Western Wireless. Visit http://www.lightbridge.com for more information.