THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260459
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 37 lines
nView Corp. lost $7.8 million in 1995 and another $1.1 million in its first fiscal quarter of 1996, so pressure had been mounting for the company to show some signs of life.
Those signs started appearing Thursday when the Newport News-based company said it posted a net income of $18,000 for the second quarter ending June 30. nView's chairman, president and CEO, Angelo Guastaferro, acknowledged that $18,000 in net income technically only meant break-even per-share results, but said the company welcomed it.
``Although second quarter's earnings were only slightly above break even, they represented a significant improvement over the second quarter last year and the first quarter this year,'' he said.
The struggling designer and manufacturer of electronic imaging projection panels lost $711,000, or 15 cents per share, during the second quarter a year ago.
Guastaferro attributed the turnaround to reduced operating expenses - partly due to laying off 15 workers - reduced inventory levels, higher profit margins and sales of its new Diamond D-400 multimedia projector.
The company cut its operating expenses in half, from $3.7 million in the second quarter last year to $1.9 million in its most recent quarter, nView said. But total sales dropped as well. nView sold $7.4 million of product during the second quarter, compared with $9.6 million during the same quarter a year ago.
It also reduced inventory from $18.9 million in the second quarter of last year to just under $8 million at the end of this quarter, the company said.
nView is also beginning the third quarter on a positive note. Guastaferro said a surge in orders near the end of the second quarter was too late to be fully recorded during that quarter - as a result, nView began its third quarter with an order backlog of $1.5 million. by CNB