ViaSat has reported record sales and earnings for its third quarter of fiscal year 2002, ended 31 December, 2001. ViaSat claims to produce advanced digital satellite telecommunications and wireless signal processing equipment for commercial and government markets. It claims to be a market leader in Ka-band satellite systems, from user terminals to large gateways for both geosynchronous and low earth orbit systems. It has field offices in India, China, Boston, the United Kingdom, Australia.
Sales for the quarter were $50.1 million compared to $43.1 million for the comparable quarter last year, a 16.2 per cent increase. Net income, which includes the effects of acquisition charges, for the third quarter of fiscal year 2002 decreased 11 per cent to $2.4 million compared to net income of $2.7 million for the third quarter of the prior year. Sales increased 24.3 per cent to $148.4 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2001, compared to $119.4 million in sales for the same period last year.
Business Highlights include:
1. ViaSat reached agreement and subsequently completed the acquisition of US Monolithics (USM) for approximately $30 million in cash and stock. USM is a designer of proprietary gallium arsenide millimeter wave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) with strong capabilities in the packaging and integration of subsystems including power amplifiers, block upconverters and entire transceivers, especially in complex high-frequency applications. USM is expected to improve ViaSat's margins on existing product lines, as well as on large broadband opportunities that ViaSat is pursuing.
2. Although selected in February 2001, this quarter ViaSat received an order from Boeing for the development and initial production quantities of the receive and transmit subsystem for the Connexion by Boeing broadband Internet and data communication service. Also during the quarter, ViaSat delivered initial production units to the venture, in support of two-way broadband demonstrations for their customers, including private aircraft owners and agencies of the United States government.
