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Symantec Corporation
10201 Torre Avenue
Cupertino, CA 95014
Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr.
President and Chief Executive Officer
To our shareholders,
I’m pleased to report to you that fiscal 1998 was the most successful year in Symantec’s
history, with record revenue and profit achieved in each quarter. Through the hard work of
our dedicated employees and partners, we met and surpassed the goals we set for ourselves,
and consolidated our position as the world leader in providing utility software for business
and personal computing.
We closed fiscal 1998 with our sixth consecutive quarter of record revenue. Revenues in
fiscal 1998 grew 22% over revenues in fiscal 1997. We increased gross margins to 85% while
reducing operating expenses from 75% to 68% as a percentage of revenue. This resulted in
an improvement in profit-before-tax from 7% to 19%. Our international regions contributed
strongly to our growth. And by the end of fiscal 1998, the contribution from international
revenue grew to 35% up from 27% the year before.
This strong financial performance is a testament to the importance we place on serving the
needs of our customers. The Company’s corporate vision statement says it well: “We will
make our customers productive and keep their computers safe and reliable. Anywhere. Anytime.”
During the year, we undertook several major initiatives to strengthen our leadership role.
These included aggressive product and marketing efforts aimed at our retail and corporate
markets; programs that both reinforced and reflected our status as a truly global corporation;
and finally, the implementation of more efficient administrative and management processes
begun over the past several years.
I’d like to share with you some of the highlights of these efforts.
ANENHANCED MARKET PRESENCE
Symantec’s principal business units—Security and Assistance and Remote Productivity
Solutions—showed strong growth in fiscal 1998.
Security and Assistance
Led by the continued strength of our Norton AntiVirus and Utilities products, the
Security and Assistance unit achieved a 28% increase in sales and comprised 50% of
Company revenues. Two new products, Norton Uninstall Deluxe and Norton CrashGuard
Deluxe, entered competitive market sectors near the end of calendar year 1997 and took
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