Forward Industries rallies 55% after Q1 results - UPDATE 2 20.01.2005 23:02 Zurück Headlines
NEW YORK (AFX) -- Shares of Forward Industries Inc. jumped 55 percent Thursday, as bundling arrangements with cell-phone heavyweights Motorola and Nokia spurred a sixfold increase in the carrying-case maker's first-quarter profit. The stock ended the day up $2.42 to $6.82 as the top percentage gainer on the Nasdaq. Volume of 4.8 million eclipsed the issue's daily average of 139,600. Forward Industries posted earnings of $1.4 million, or 21 cents per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, up from $192,000, or 3 cents, earned in the fiscal 2004 first quarter. Thomson First Call doesn't publish a consensus estimate for the Pompano Beach, Fla.-based company's results. Quarterly sales surged 98 percent, reaching $8.9 million from $4.5 million. The company's cell-phone cases saw a 166 percent sales increase due to interest in its "in-box" cases accompanying launches of new handsets by Motorola and Nokia . Also, sales of the company's diabetic cases got a 26 percent boost to $2.4 million in the latest quarter, reflecting "particularly strong demand" from one of its major customers. In addition, business execution played a role in the profit surge, management said. "Because of our relatively fixed cost structure and robust sales growth, our operating expenses, as a percentage of sales, declined to 16.3 percent from 28.9 percent in the prior-year period," said Jerome Ball, chairman and CEO of Forward Industries. Ball added that the company remains "very optimistic" about its overall prospects for the year.
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