THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 18, 1996 TAG: 9610180542
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 36 lines
Improvement comes in small steps at Newport News-based nView Corp., which said Thursday it posted a $29,000 net income in its fiscal third quarter.
The income translates to just 1 cent per share, but that's better than the $2.8 million loss - or 58 cents per share - the manufacturer of video projection panels posted in the same quarter of 1995.
Through the first nine months of fiscal 1996, nView lost $1 million, compared with a loss of $4.1 million in the first nine months of last year, the company said.
nView achieved profitability by paring operating expenses. Those costs totaled $1.9 million in the third quarter, a 42 percent drop from the $3.2 million in operating expenses during the same period last year, the company said.
Sales increased from $7.1 million in last year's third quarter to $8.5 million in the most recent quarter, the company said. But gross margin dropped from 26 percent to 22 percent, primarily because the company increased its Original Equipment Manufacturer sales, nView Chairman Angelo Guastaferro said.
The OEM sales occur when nView manufactures a product, but other companies market it under their name brands.
Polaroid, for instance, is selling nView's newest projector under its name.
OEM allows a company to sell more of its products, but usually means its profits per item are less than if sold under its name.
``We have concentrated on controlling our expenses and shipping quality products and have been pleased with our success in those areas,'' Guastaferro said.
``We are now taking steps to increase our sales . . . to balance the impact of the high volume, lower margin OEM programs,'' he added.
KEYWORDS: NVIEW by CNB