More of the same

I missed the announcement from Dalsa, makers of a wide range of quality cameras, and imaging hardware and software, of their 4th Quarter ’08 financial results, but that won’t stop me from discussing them. I have to say though, that their figures tell the same story as those from Cognex and ISRA: 2008 was shaping up to be a good year until the 4th quarter, at which point customers all got cold feet and scaled back their orders.

For 2008 as a whole they earned CDN$22m on revenues of CDN$206m, and while they pushed up sales 16% the impressive statistic is that they grew earnings 137%. In fairness, much of the profit growth came from getting out of the HD movie business, but that shouldn't detract from the fact that they run a tight ship up there in Ontario.

CEO Brian Doody comments in the press release that they are, “actively reducing … costs and expenditures,” – let’s hope that doesn’t include R&D, which has been close to 20% of revenues for the last couple of years.

Overall, the tone and outlook for ’09 out of Dalsa is cautious, but not quite as apprehensive as from some of their competitors. Maybe that’s a benefit of being quite diversified, or perhaps it’s because they know they make some excellent products.