THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 13, 1996 TAG: 9602130250
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
nView Corp. on Monday finally closed its books on 1995, a year in which the company had problems manufacturing a hot new product, laid off 15 percent of its work force and lost $7.8 million.
In nearly every category of business, the Newport News manufacturer of electronic projection panels hit hard times last year. Its bottom line swung from a net income of $2.5 million in 1994 to the $7.8 million loss last year, the company reported.
The 1995 loss included a write-off of $1.8 million worth of inventory, which was included in nView's loss of $3.7 million in the fourth quarter.
Total sales fell, too, after the product nView pinned its hopes on for the year - the nFinity projector - was shipped out only for the company to discover flaws in its manufacturing. Sales dropped from $35.9 million in 1994 to $32.9 million last year.
``We stumbled a lot in 1995,'' nView spokesman James Kirkpatrick said, ``with some flawed product introductions. We now feel we've worked our way through that.''
The question now is how long nView can continue to operate while losing money. The answer seems to be: at least a while longer. The company announced with its year-end report that it had secured a line of credit ``to support nView future growth.''
``I don't think a bunch of investors would be involved if they were going to continue to operate at a loss for very long,'' Scott & Stringfellow analyst George Shipp said. ``I don't think the bleeding is quite as bad as it looks in the fourth quarter.''
Again this year, nView is counting on another leading-edge product to turn things around. Its new DiaMonD D-400 multimedia projector is built on a new technology developed by Texas Instruments for displaying digital images. Texas Instruments has licensed its digital light processing technology to other companies, but nView says it will be the first to incorporate the technology into a product.
nView has scheduled a March release for the DiaMonD projector.
``If they can put the product out and price it to earn any kind of money,'' Shipp said, ``I think their business is good enough that they will get some orders. It's bad, but they've still got a pulse.'' by CNB