Today, Barco announced their quarterly earnings that included booked orders of 269.0 million euro ($304 Million US) of incoming orders, an increase of 10 percent year-over-year. At constant currencies, orders were 6.1 percent higher compared to last year. Order book as of 31 March 2019 stood at 341 million euro, up 12.4 percent compared to the first quarter of last year.

Sales for the quarter were 242.8 million euro ($275 Million U.S.), an increase of 8.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2018. At constant currencies, sales were 4.1 percent higher than last year. According to Barco, all divisions delivered growth for the first quarter of the year. The enterprise division produced another quarter of solid growth fueled by continued strong momentum for both ClickShare, as well as control rooms, which delivered its third consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth. Sales for the entertainment division were stronger than last year led by further uptakes in Cinema in North America and EMEA. The Healthcare division continued to post solid results in all segments.

ClearOne also announced earnings earlier this week for their Q4. Here’s a summary of their announcement:

• Q4 2018 revenue was $7.2 million, compared to $9.3 million in Q4 2017 and $6.7 million in Q3 2018. The year-over-year decrease reflects an impact of the on-going harm of infringement of ClearOne’s patents resulting in slower adoption of our latest generation professional audio-conferencing platform. The patent infringement has also negatively impacted revenue from ClearOne’s other products. Sequential increase in revenue was due to better performance of video products.
• GAAP gross profit in Q4 2018 was $3.0 million compared to $4.8 million in Q4 2017 and $3.0 million in Q3 2018. GAAP gross profit margin was 42 percent in Q4 2018, compared to 51 percent in Q4 2017 and 45 percent in Q3 2018. The gross profit margin decrease was primarily due to a decline in professional audio licensing revenues and due to reduced overhead absorption into inventory. The proportion of overhead costs absorbed into inventory has declined due to a sharp decline in our inventory purchasing activity causing increased amounts of overhead costs to be expensed.
• Operating expenses in Q4 2018 were $5.6 million, compared to $5.8 million in Q4 2017 and $5.3 million in Q3 2018. The majority of the decrease in operating expenses over Q4 2017 is attributable to decreases in employee-related costs, bad debts, legal expenses, advertising expenses, commissions to independent reps, amortization of demonstration equipment costs and R&D project costs, partially offset by increases in amortization of intangible assets, consultant fees and health care benefits. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q4 2018 were $5.1 million, compared to $6.1 million in Q4 2017 and $4.9 million in Q3 2018. The sequential increase in GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses was mainly due to higher costs related to health care benefits provided to employees.
• GAAP net loss in Q4 2018 was $2.5 million, or $0.23 per share, compared to net loss of $3.6 million, or $0.43 per share, in Q4 2017 and net loss of $10.1 million, or $1.22 per share, in Q3 2018. Net loss in Q4 2018 was largely caused by operating losses on account of reduction in revenue and associated gross profit. Net loss in Q4 2018 was lesser than net loss in Q4 2017 largely due to the absence of a true-up of provision of $2.6 million for income taxes in Q4 2017. Net loss in Q3 2018 was largely caused by the non-cash write-off of deferred tax assets amounting to $7.8 million and reduction in revenue and associated gross profit. Non-GAAP net loss was $2.0 million, or $0.18 per share, in Q4 2018, compared to non-GAAP net loss of $2.3 million in Q4 2017 and non-GAAP net loss was $9.6 million or $1.15 per share, in Q3 2018.

We do not have many publicly traded companies in our industry that are exclusively focused in commercial AV so these earnings can sometimes represent a public gauge of how we are doing as a market, overall.

ClearOne is here. Barco is here.