P25  |  2020-03-05

New Internal Engineering Team Driving LMR Product Development Initiatives for BK Radio

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

BK Technologies Corporation today announced financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and twelve months ended December 31, 2019. According to BK President Tim Vitou, the future looks promising.

For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2019, revenues totaled approximately $7.4 million, compared with approximately $10.7 million for the fourth quarter last year. The operating loss for the fourth quarter 2019 totaled approximately $2.4 million, compared with approximately $531,000 for the fourth quarter last year. The net loss for the fourth quarter of 2019 was approximately $1.3 million, or $0.10 per basic and diluted share, compared with approximately $1.3 million, or $0.10 per basic and diluted share, for the same quarter last year.

Net loss for the fourth quarter 2019 includes unrealized gains on investments in securities totaling approximately $530,000, compared with losses of approximately $1.3 million for the same quarter last year.

The Company had approximately $14.5 million in working capital as of December 31, 2019, of which $8.6 million was comprised of cash, cash equivalents and trade receivables. This compares with working capital of approximately $21.0 million as of December 31, 2018, of which $17.0 million was comprised of cash, cash equivalents and trade receivables. As of December 31, 2019 net inventories totaled approximately $13.5 million, compared with approximately $11.5 million at the end of 2018. The increase was attributed primarily to finished goods and work-in-process inventories as sales decreased from the preceding year. With improved sales and adjusted manufacturing volumes, inventories have been reduced during the first two months of 2020.

Tim Vitou, BK’s President, commented, “We encountered a challenging sales landscape during the fourth quarter of 2019, as some of our established federal customers were slow executing orders for new equipment, several of which were received, and announced, after year-end in January 2020. Late in the fourth quarter, however, we received an order from a new California-based customer, which was also previously announced. For the full year, sales were impacted by the deferral until 2020 of anticipated orders from certain state and international customers, as well as the U.S. federal government shutdown in the first quarter of 2019.”

Mr. Vitou continued, “Looking beyond last year, we believe our future is promising. Product development initiatives have made strides under the guidance of BK’s new Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Branko Avanic, and we are excited about the initial growth of our new internal engineering team with extensive and proven experience in the development of successful land mobile radio products. These new products are envisioned to have features and functionality that we believe should increase our addressable markets and drive sales growth. While these development efforts have taken longer than originally anticipated, we believe the initial product model will be complete during the first half of this year with others to follow later.”

For the year ended December 31, 2019, sales totaled approximately $40.1 million, compared with approximately $49.4 million for the prior year. The operating loss for 2019 totaled approximately $4.4 million, compared with operating income of approximately $2.4 million last year. The net loss for the year ended December 31, 2019 totaled approximately $2.6 million, or $0.21 per basic and diluted share, compared with $195,000, or $0.01 per basic and diluted share last year.
The financial results for the year ended December 31, 2019 include unrealized gains on investment in securities totaling approximately $716,000, compared with realized and unrealized losses of approximately $2.7 million for the prior year.

 

BK Radio at IWCE 2019