Littlefish...SCKT...A few things I've learned recently:
--I complained to the CFO that, even though scanner sales (from my tracking of inventory at NA distributors) are improving month-to-month, deliveries to distributors seems to always be against the backlog and never seems to get ahead of the curve. His response to me was that the strong demand has been such that their suppliers haven't been keeping up at the level they need them to be, however, that should start to change here the rest of this month and going forward. In my opinion, it's important Socket is seen as a good supplier to all their partners.
--The CFO won't go into any real detail, but he says the company is standing by their conference call statements of "increased scanner sales, increased Somo sales and increased profitability". On the last cc call there was talk of a "new OEM product"----it's not really a new product, but a new customer that is using Socket's bluetooth technology in their own product. The CFO said to look for that division to stay in the $500K range for this quarter and perhaps grow a bit going forward. (A positive considering it was in the $200K-$300K range historically).
--The CEO goes to Japan next week. That's an important trip as it could help lock up the next phase of the Japanese deal (around 30K 7ci scanners).
--On the cc call they discussed United Van Lines as a customer. I know they have started shipping on this order. No idea on the size of it. They hope to do a press release on it but they need approval from United Van Lines first (he's not sure they will get it as many company's don't like to be used by other companies for press releases).
--The new scanners, 7pi and 7mi, are shown on their website right now. I've been told to expect a public announcement on them as soon as they are available to buy (which I was told was around mid-May).
--One of the insiders, Michael Gifford, oddly exercised some of his options he received in October and sold them already (he's done similar things in the past). The CFO said he can't speak for exactly why it was done, other than it's part of his 10b5-1 plan that was set up, but it's not a reflection of anything going forward with the company. (He has told people in the past that Gifford has a daughter in college and he often needs to fund her studies. The executives had their salaries cut 33-40% from Nov 1rst to April 1rst as they were cutting costs hard as the transition to the increased sales hadn't finished yet). The CFO reiterated that the company thinks they are on the verge of a very large and upcoming market for their products.
--I will be at the Shareholder's Meeting on June 5th.
Dave
AI
