19 February 1998: US-based Southwall Technologies Inc. marked 1997 as a good year; fourth quarter revenues were up for the thin film coatings company, which reported net income of US$ 703,000 or US$ ….
19 February 1998: US-based Southwall Technologies Inc. marked 1997 as a good year; fourth quarter revenues were up for the thin film coatings company, which reported net income of US$ 703,000 or US$ .09 per dilutive share, for end of December 1997. For the same period a year ago, the company reported net income of US$ 657,000, or $.09 per dilutive share. Revenues also increased by 53% to a record US$ 15,467,000 in the current fourth quarter from $10,127,000 for the same period a year ago. For the whole year, South wall posted net income of US$ 2,281,000 or US$ 0.29 per dilutive share, on record revenue of US$ 50,089,000. For the same period last year, the company recorded net income of US$ 2,427,000 or US$ .035 per dilutive share on revenues of US$ 41,720,000. Fourth quarter 1997 net income was reduced by approximately US$ .5 million for start-up expenses of the company“s new manufacturing facility in Tempe, Arizona. Start-up expenses related to the new facility totalled approximately US$ 1.6 million for the year 1997. Without these start-up expenses, it is estimated that net income would have been approximately US$ 1.2 million or US$ 0.15 per dilutive share for the quarter just ended, and approximately US$ 3.9 million or US$ 0.50 per dilutive share for the year. “The Company continued to meet its sales growth objectives, despite capacity constraints. By early December, our new machine in Tempe was producing high quality anti-reflective product at a rate more than double that of our older Palo Alto machine. The fourth quarter was our strongest quarter ever for automotive film sales, nearly triple our previous best quarter. We anticipate continued strong growth in sales of this product in 1998.” The company also said it continued to have more demand than capacity for supply of film for major European automotive customers, and that the continued strengthening of demand for automotive film was “especially encouraging”. Sales of that product more than doubled for the year compared to 1996. Southwall also reported an increase in sales of their Heat Mirror window film in the fourth quarter, instead of decreasing, as is typical for this time of year, said Schwartz.