bbotcs....SCKT...I will talk with the CFO tomorrow directly. I have an e-mail in to him now and will follow that up with a phone call. The 4th Q was disappointing. I know I got my enthusiasm got ahead of the game and perhaps because of it overlooked some warning signs I shouldn't have. But there are two things going forward that matter a lot that are positive.....
1. Expenses are now at the lowest they have ever been in company history and they are committed to keeping them low. This is very valuable going forward. It really is.
2. Scanner sales were a bit lower than I expected. It's ironic in that $1.5M is exactly what I calculated (assuming 60% domestic and 40% international orders). I just assumed I was not able to see all of the N.A. distributor sales and so I made the incorrect projection of scanners being at record levels ($1.7M and above).
Posivive things: The scanners are going to be record levels every quarter from here on out. That hasn't changed. The Japanese order for 3200 scanners is just a "trial" for a larger order of substantial size---I will let you figure out the size of that one but I've hinted about it to you in the past. The CEO said there were multiple other large orders out there. Fujits, NCR, Casio, Panasonic haven't even begun to really sell their products. 100 POS systems haven't even started to really ramp up yet in scanner sales. The scanner future is just beginning.
Negatives: It's the Somo PDA. $900K in sales n the 4th Q is not acceptable. I will talk to the CFO about it more. When they went from the older 650 model to the 655, this transition is lasting longer than I expected. I can't track Somo sales well at all so this will always be an unknown factor in any analysis I do.
I will talk to the CFO and find out exactly how the $3.5M in shippable orders is broken down specifically that has already been booked for 1rst Q. I know there is a difference between "shippable" vs "sold and booked for revenue". I also know that just about every scanner in N.A. that makes it to the distributor is getting sold immediately. They actually are having problems keeping up. I don't need the company to tell me that, I can see it myself in the data. The Somo though is a different problem and I will find out how much of that $3.5M relates to that product.
If 1rst Q is in the mid $4M to $5M range and they are net income positive on that, it's only 1 quarter off from the calculation. It was pretty clear on the conference call that they intend to hit that target. Another reason you know they will----the CFO said that the annual meeting/shareholder vote is delayed till June. He also said that shareholders will be voting on "say for pay" and "say when for pay". If you aren't familiar with these terms than Google them. The company doesn't want upset shareholders voting on these issues. It's why, imo, the annual meeting is now in June and not April. Shareholders will start to get their proxies to vote in May (after the 1rst Q conference call in late April). If management held the vote now, they would get creamed. By May, shareholders may not be so angry.
It's ugly but not hopeless.
