Embraer and Codelco boost Sonda’s projects pipeline

Santiago-based IT systems integrator Sonda closed deals worth over US$850 million during the first six months of the year, leveraged mostly by contracts signed during Q2 with Brazilian aeronautics company Embraer, Chilean state miner Codelco and Mexican supermarket chain Tiendas Soriana.

With that, Sonda's business pipeline reached US$5.94 billion, of which US$2.65bn correspond to Brazil, US$1.67bn to the Southern Cone and the rest to other geographies.

Sonda’s H1 revenues came close to US$770mn, up by 28.6% year-over-year, driven mainly by Brazil and the Southern Cone. In the Andean region, revenues grew by 41.5% as reported and 11.8% in constant currency, the company said in its latest financial report.

Meanwhile, in North America, which for the company’s purposes encompasses the US, Mexico and parts of Central America and the Caribbean, revenues grew by 30.8% as reported and 8.7% in constant terms. 

Highlights for this region included the start of a project with Banco Popular in Costa Rica, new smart city projects in Mexico, and government initiatives in Panama.

Broken down by business lines, digital business contributed 32.8% to revenues, digital services 32% and transactional business 35.2%.

Highlights in digital business were Brazil and the Andean region, in both cases associated with new contracts, Sonda said without providing details.

In digital services, chief contributors were the Infovia Digital fiber backbone project in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, the Metrobus project in Mexico and new contracts in the Southern Cone.

Sonda projects revenues of US$1.4bn for the full year. 

In 2023, sales reached US$1.32bn. Of total revenues, roughly 56% corresponded to the Southern Cone, 27% to Brazil, 9% to the Andean region and 8% to North America.

Financial services (12%), retail (10%), the public sector (9%) and transport (8%) are the leading verticals served by the group.

DATACENTERS

Sonda is currently in a process of capitalizing its datacenter business, which includes assessing investors for the sites.

At a press conference in February, CEO José Orlandini said in response to a question by BNamericas that three companies had been shortlisted as potential investors for the datacenters, but no agreement has been announced.

Santander is Sonda's financial adviser for the process.

The company has a tier IV datacenter in Santiago, a tier III site also in Santiago and one in Brazil's Minas Gerais, and one datacenter at its corporate offices.