Smilehouse´s fast growth makes it to the Deloitte Fast 500 list

Companies significantly boosted their e-commerce investments in 2007. The general growth in the sector has also fuelled the growth of Smilehouse, a specialised e-commerce solutions provider. In 2007, the company’s turnover was up by 46%, with healthy profitability.

Smilehouse has been showing strong growth for a long time, as evidenced by it being included for the second time in two years on the Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA list, which lists the fastest growing technology companies.

“Our strong growth shows that e-commerce is increasingly often an integral part of companies’ strategies, and that it can help achieve tangible sales growth and efficiency improvement. Our decision to focus on providing complete and specialised solutions for e-commerce has received strong acceptance from the markets,” says Tapio Talvisalo, CEO of Smilehouse Oy.

Key accounts and the SME sector the growth drivers
Smilehouse’s growth in 2007 was largely based on significant key accounts in the corporate customer segment, and powerful growth in the SME sector. Last year, Smilehouse won several major accounts, such as Lumene, Orion, Suunto, the Hedengren Group and Anglo-Nordic.

Over 8 000 merchants uses free e-commerce service Wosbee
Smilehouse released a free e-commerce service for entrepreneurs and small businesses on May at CeBIT 2007. Now anyone can open a free webshop at www.wosbee.com and build successful e-business solution, with secure hosting included.

Compared to other e-commerce services, Wosbee is offered free of charge. It includes a lively community for services and support. Today Wosbee has a community of over 8 000 merchants.

Smilehouse invests in strategic partnership
“In 2008 we intend to enhance our solutions range, particularly in the strategy-level value added services for e-business. We partner with our customers to help them make the most of the opportunities provided by e-commerce. The development work on the Workspace product line is moving on to the second generation version, offering companies even more extensive opportunities for exploiting e-commerce in their business. We feel very confident about the future,” Talvisalo continues.

Now listed on the Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA list, Smilehouse is the only Finnish growth company focusing on e-commerce. The aggregate turnover growth percentage for the past five years is 318. In 2007, Smilehouse recorded turnover in excess of EUR 3.5 million, showing an increase of 46% on the previous year. At the same time, the number of company personnel rose to 70 e-commerce specialists. Strong growth is expected to continue, and the budgeted turnover for 2008 is EUR 5.5 million.

Further information:

Tapio Talvisalo
CEO, Smilehouse
Tel. +358 40 503 5953
email. tapio.talvisalo@smilehouse.com

Esa Luoto
Communications manager
Smilehouse Oy
Tel. + 358 9 25 122 168
esa.luoto@smilehouse.com

About Smilehouse
Smilehouse is a software company focusing on e-commerce solutions for businesses. Smilehouse has delivered more than 200 e-commerce solutions to customers such as Lumene, Orion, Tiimari, Suunto, Anglo-Nordic, Lippupiste, Iittala, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE and the S Group. In addition, hundreds of companies in Finland and thousands worldwide use Smilehouse’s free e-commerce services.

The Smilehouse Group includes Smilehouse Oy, Karttago Oy, Smilehouse Baltic Oü and Louhi Networks Oy. The company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, with offices also in Estonia and the Netherlands. The Group employs 70 people and its targeted turnover for 2008 is EUR 5.5 million. The Group is showing profitable growth and its D&B credit rating is AAA. Further information: www.smilehouse.com.