News Release-- August 28, 2008

Automated Announces FY09 First Quarterly Results Turnover Up 9.4% To HK$354.7 Million - Overseas Business Revenue Jumps 62.2% To HK$41.1 Million

(Hong Kong, 28 August 2008) – Automated Systems Holdings Limited ("ASL” or “the Group”) (stock code: 771), a leading IT services provider in Hong Kong, announced its first quarterly results for the three months ended 30 June 2008. Turnover for the first quarter in FY09 was HK$354.7 million, an increase of HK$30.6 million or 9.4% compared with the corresponding period in FY08. Net profit for the period reached HK$12.9 million (FY08 Q1: HK$12.9 million). Basic earnings per share for the first quarter were HK 4.34 cents (FY08 Q1: HK 4.38 cents).

Mr. Lai Yam Ting, Managing Director of ASL, said, “We are very pleased with our satisfactory performance in the first quarter of FY09, attributed by the good performance of infrastructure and services business, particularly in the commercial sector. Although the Group was pressurised by the high inflationary cost, it continued to succeed in securing sizable projects. Services business also grew and brought stable revenue to the Group.”

Product sales and service revenue for the first quarter grew HK$14.2 million and HK$16.3 million respectively, increased by 7.0% and 13.5% against the same period last year, accounting for 61.3% and 38.7% respectively of the Group’s turnover of the quarter. Commercial and public sector sales made up 58.8% and 41.2% of turnover respectively for the period under review, against 55.5% and 44.5% in the same period last year.

The Group maintained a healthy balance sheet with net cash of approximately HK$316.0 million as at 30 June 2008. The order book carried a total value of approximately HK$550.0 million and working capital ratio was 2.08:1.

In the first quarter of FY09, the infrastructure business continued to record satisfactory performance. The Group continued to receive repeated business from customers in different industries, particularly the banking, telecommunications and transportation sectors, for system upgrade and enhancement to raise operational efficiency and customer service. In the private sector, the Group secured two multi-million dollar projects – supplying 22 units of Sun servers to a leading international bank for supporting business expansion and providing hardware infrastructure for a passenger integration platform of a famous Hong Kong-based international airline. In the public sector, the Group won a tender to supply, deliver, install and maintain storage systems and Storage Area Network switches for a government related organisation.

During the first quarter of FY09, the Group’s services business continued to perform well with a number of sizable and long-term maintenance and managed services deals secured from different industries. The Group was awarded a multi-million dollar 5-year government IT maintenance and support services contract from one of the largest government departments. The contract covers the supply of 7x24 hardware and software maintenance services for 40,000 pieces of equipment at over 100 customer sites and dedicated support teams to serve approximately 32,000 users. Furthermore, the Group won a multi-million dollar 3-year managed services tender to provide Computer Technician Support Service for 32 Hong Kong public libraries. In the education sector, the Group was awarded a maintenance services contract from the Open University of Hong Kong and another one from a renowned local tertiary education institute. The contract with the Open University of Hong Kong covers the provision of maintenance services for servers, networks, systems and related peripherals.

In addition, the Group continued to land contracts from private and public organisations to provide different kinds of IT solutions. Security incidents, one after another, that surfaced earlier this year, led to an increase in IT spending among different enterprises and organisations to enhance network security. The phenomenon brought the Group a number of orders from customers in various sectors.

As for the overseas business of the Group, it sustained satisfactory performance during the review period. Turnover from the business rose 62.2% compared with the same period last year. The Group recorded an encouraging growth in Taiwan through continual penetration of various industries. The Group won an over a million dollar project from one of the largest IT distribution companies in the Asia Pacific to provide storage and backup hardware for customer’s data centre consolidation. The Group also won a contract to provide security appliances to the Shanghai office of an international bank in Hong Kong to ensure them with a secure and efficient Web communications. In Macau, the Group provided a tailored hospitality solution for Macau CTS Hotel Management (International) Limited to manage the back-office operations. Tapping the recent increase in customer demand for virtualized IT infrastructure in Thailand, the Group garnered a contract from Klongchan Credit Union Limited for the provision of storage virtualization, backup and recovery solution to help the customer boost efficiency. These wins are the fruits of efforts of the Group to explore businesses outside Hong Kong.

Mr. Lai said, “To provide quality products and value-added services to our customers, we strive to maintain strong relationship with our vendors and forge new business partnership with innovative IT players. Recently, the Group has won an over a million dollar project in partnership with H3C to set up a large-scale 10GE network infrastructure for a Hong Kong-based television broadcaster. In addition, we are also having partnership discussion with a leading US-based data warehouse software and services company in the field of super warehousing.”

The Group has kept exploring new business opportunities. In July, it extended a human resources solution to the banking and finance sector. It secured a multi-million dollar contract from a prestigious financial institution in Hong Kong for the provision of a comprehensive human resources management system for 700 users in the institution.

“The Group's ability to implement large-scale and complex project with high quality and excellent services was once again acknowledged recently. The Onscreen Marking System project was commissioned to us by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority since 2007. And we are glad that this system has excelled in the sixth annual MIS Asia IT Excellence Awards, an honor recognized as one of the Asia’s most prestigious award competitions that appreciates excellence in information technology management.” Mr. Lai added.

To maintain competitiveness, the Group continues to invest in human resources development. It conducted Six Sigma staff training in July and early August 2008 and expected to increase the number of Green Belts. It also introduced the world-class Voices Multi-rater 360˚ Feedback System, a competency-based and research-validated 360˚ assessment tool for leader development.

Mr. Lai concluded, “Looking ahead, we will continue to maintain Hong Kong as our centre of excellence while focusing on Taiwan and the entire Greater China. Having made the many accomplishments in the first quarter and more progress since after, we are positive about our performance in the rest of the year.”

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