THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 27, 1995 TAG: 9510270543
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Newport News-based nView Corp. continued its rocky year Thursday when it reported a loss of $2.8 million for the third quarter.
The third-quarter loss by the manufacturer of high-technology projector screens follows a second quarter deficit of $711,000 and a first quarter loss of $592,000.
During its 1995 fiscal year, nView has had problems getting components for its new multimedia projector, has seen its founder, James H. Vogeley, step down as president to concentrate on research, and has had its bottom line plagued by an inventory that peaked at nearly $21 million in March.
``We're carrying a lot of baggage,'' said nView spokesman James A. Kirkpatrick. ``The thing that really threw us this quarter has been the nFinity projector that was rushed to market and as a result carried a number of functional problems that had to be corrected.''
nView has redesigned the projector and sales have picked up, CEO Robert D. Hoke said, but not in time to save the company from a significant third quarter loss.
The company reduced its inventory by $3.6 million - to $15.3 million - by the end of the third quarter, but the price reductions it had to make to reduce the inventory also hurt its bottom line, Kirkpatrick said.
``They're struggling right now,'' said Scott & Stringfellow Inc. analyst George Shipp. ``At one point they had the right product but no distribution; now they've got distribution but they tried to rush the nFinity to market and they had quality problems.''
nView's sales for the third quarter were $7.1 million, compared to $8.5 million for the same quarter last year. Its $2.8 million loss, or 58 cents a share, contrasts with its $924,000 net income, or 19 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.
The company is banking on an early 1996 introduction of a projector using digital light processing technology developed by Texas Instruments to turn things around.
``We believe we have seen nView's performance low point for the year,'' Hoke said.
Shipp said nView needs all its operations to click in 1996. ``All they need is one good product, and they need to come out with it first, and it needs to work,'' he said. by CNB