Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR), which provides turnkey solar lines and capital equipment, reported record revenues for 1Q08 of $14.9 million, a 113% increase from 1Q07.
Net loss for the quarter shrank to $508,000, or $0.06 per share, compared with a net loss of $1.7 million, or $0.21 per share, for 1Q07.
Roger G. Little, Chairman and CEO of Spire, said, "This is the fifth straight quarter Spire has achieved record revenues and our financials continued to improve. We had a higher gross margin of 25% versus 19% a year ago and reduced our operating loss 88% to only $204,000 compared to last year’s first quarter loss of $1.8 million. We had positive cash flow from operating activities of $936,000 compared to an operating cash flow loss of $2.5 million for the same period last year."
"Spire Solar sales grew by 197% compared to a year ago resulting in the second straight quarter of profits for our solar operations. We delivered or installed turnkey production lines in Taiwan, the Dominican Republic and Spain. We received modules line orders from Russia, India, Korea and Portugal," Little added.
The company said that while gross margins improved overall, there were additional costs for more space and staff for increased manufacturing, as well as higher sales commissions and higher professional fees.
"Spire Biomedical processing services showed good performance, growing with the market. However, we are evaluating strategic alternatives for our catheter product line to further focus our resources on our fast growing solar business," Little said.
About Spire Corporation
Spire Corporation is a global solar company providing turnkey production lines and capital equipment to manufacture photovoltaic modules worldwide. Spire Semiconductor provides processing technology for Spire’s silicon solar cell manufacturing lines and produces and sells custom gallium arsenide cells for solar concentrator systems. Spire Biomedical utilizes processing technology developed for solar cell manufacturing and is a leader in implantable device processing services and hemodialysis.
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