NEXT Biometrics announces quarterly earnings and outlines expectations

NEXT Biometrics outlined its plans for the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first half of next year in a quarterly results announcement on Tuesday.

As previously reported, NEXT’s earnings rose nearly 7 percent to 28.4 million Norweigan Krone ($3.5 million USD) in the third quarter. Highlights of the company’s quarter include shipment of its first million fingerprint sensors, implementation of its second-generation sensors in all modules, testing of its second-generation ASIC, and a second volume order for 250,000 flexible fingerprints for the smart card market.

Sales are expected to remain similar during the fourth quarter, and mass production of NEXT’s flexible fingerprint sensors will ramp up during the first half of 2017. The company says it is making progress in negotiations with major players in the smart card industry, and its future results should be helped by its improving production yields and lower chip costs.

CEO Tore Etholm-Idsoe said he expects “major effects from the third quarter of 2017” to come from innovations and deals soon to be implemented, which will reduce its costs to targeted levels.

“The company focuses its resources on quality dependent market segments that require high uncompromised levels of security and convenience coupled with the ability to serve close to 100% of a given population,” said Etholm-Idsoe. “These markets include Smart Cards, NEXT-Enabled markets, traditional markets, high-end security focused smartphones and notebooks where the NEXT technology is uniquely positioned.”

“The Smart Card segment is the primary focus for the company. NEXT believes it holds a fundamental competitive advantages within this market and that early Smart Card customer projects involve significant value propositions” he added. “The company has over the past 12-to-18 months identified significant opportunities within several major Smart Card market segments.”

Etholm-Idsoe expects the company’s operations mode to normalize early next year and its margins to “make a leap” as its new ASIC is introduced in Q3 2017.

NEXT will showcase its flexible fingerprint sensors at the Trustech trade show in Cannes next week.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  financial results  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Next Biometrics