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Much of the news in advertising and digital television revolves around the impact of the digital video recorder (DVR). Here is the financial report of just one (albeit a large one) manufacturer. Note that at the bottom of their quarterly statistics, SA added almost half as many DVR's as TiVo has total in non-DirectTV households!
Digital TV equipment provider, Scientific-Atlanta, has released financial results for its fiscal third quarter:
• Sales totaled $489.5 million, representing an increase of $52.5 million, or 12%, from the year-ago quarter, and an increase of $47.8 million, or 11%, from the preceding quarter.
The company attributed the year-over-year increase in subscriber product sales to "the mix shift toward higher-end digital set-top products and higher sales of cable modems, partially offset by lower selling prices for all set-top models."
• Gross margin was 36.9% of sales, flat with the year-ago quarter and down by 20 basis points from the preceding quarter. The company attributed the decrease to "the continued decline of average selling prices."
• Earnings totaled $61.7 million, or $0.40 per share, up $7.8 million, or 14%, from the year-ago quarter, and up $3 million, or 5%, from the preceding quarter.
At the end of the quarter, the company's cash reserves and short-term investments totaled $1.453 billion, up $137.2 million from the end of the preceding quarter. Cash provided by operating activities during the quarter totaled $148.6 million.
The company shipped 496,000 DVR's during the quarter, representing a 62% increase from the year-ago quarter, and an 11% increase from the preceding quarter. Slightly more than half of those shipments were of high-definition DVR's.