Jabra optimistic despite 'dodgy' Q2

Skype For Business launch and currency headwinds caused problems for the UC vendor

Unified communications vendor Jabra claims it is on track for a good year, despite admitting a number of external factors prompted it to have a "dodgy" Q2.

The vendor said a combination of the general election, currency fluctuations and Microsoft's rebranding of Lync caused the wobble, but insisted it is back on track for the full year.

"Q2 was a bit dodgy and for us; it was mainly to do with Skype for Business, I would say," said Jabra's UK managing director Nigel Dunn (pictured). "And there were a lot of things to do with the dollar exchange rate, which I think put people off. But Q3 is looking great – back to the rather nice 25-plus per cent growth areas and that is a nice place to be. So things are going – outside [Q2] – according to plan."

Earlier this year, Microsoft rebranded its commercial communications kit Lync to Skype For Business in a move the vendor said would transform the way businesses communicate.

Dunn said he was disappointed in the way the change happened because customers were confused.

"There was an enormous amount of hype leading up to it and I have to say, it was terribly disappointing," he said. "The whole launch didn't go according to plan, in our eyes. It is unfair to level that against Microsoft, because they probably did it exactly how they wanted to do it. For us, it didn't have that powerful effect and there were a lot of customers who were very confused about what the difference [between the two are].

"The interface looks a little bit more like Skype, but outside that, you'd be hard pushed to [see] anything different. We had a number of project delays – quite big ones too – caused by this. There were a lot of questions which had to be answered and we went through a lot of re-trailing, so that was one of the bigger things [affecting Q2]."

But currency fluctuations also weighed heavily on the Denmark-headquartered company's mind in Q2.

"The dollar exchange rate hit a lot of US vendors and we are dependent on a number of US vendors driving the market – notably Microsoft, but also the Dells and HPs," he said.

"The dollar exchange rate was a big issue for us. We're a Danish company, so in theory, we should be more worried about the Danish krona and euros, but the euro is being driven a lot by US prices, and we buy a lot of our components in US dollars – it is a knock-on effect. It meant we had to drop our prices; we had about a five or six per cent decrease in revenue. And couple that with a bit of a slowdown in the market, and guess what? We didn't grow as much as we wanted to."

But Dunn insisted the firm is back on track, and the start of Q3 has been positive.

"The first eight months of the year have been really good for us and the final part of the year looks like it is going to be really big," he said. "A lot [of deals] which were put off in Q2 are coming to fruition now – there are some very big projects we are working on. So by and large it will be a good year. There was just that blip in Q2 which took us all by surprise – PC vendors, the lot – we all had a strange time in Q2."