4Q Sales And Profits Soar At Mercury Interactive4Q Sales And Profits Soar At Mercury Interactive

Mercury Interactive Corp.'s strategy of expanding beyond its software-testing roots into application performance management appears to be paying off. The company Wednesday reported net income of $18.8 million in its fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, on a 30% sales increase.

Mercury Interactive reported sales of $117.8 million for the quarter, up 30% from the same period a year earlier. Revenue from license fees, a key indicator of future growth, rose more than 21%, to $58.6 million. The $18.8 million net income represented a 19% increase from the year-ago quarter, even though the bottom line included a $4.9 million write-off of investments in nonconsolidated companies and amortization of $700,000 from the company's 2001 acquisition of Freshwater Software.

For the year ended Dec. 31, Mercury Interactive reported net income of $65.2 million on revenue of $400.1 million, up from net income of $34.2 million on revenue of $361.0 million in 2001.

Last fall, Mercury Interactive debuted its Optane application-performance-monitoring software, expanding its product line beyond its core software-testing and -tuning tools.