Avante second quarter results
Avante Technologies Inc AVQ
Shares issued 16,475,891 Feb 29 close $0.20
Wed 1 Mar 2000 News Release
Mr. Neil Werfhorst reports
Avante has completed sales of $269,734 during the first six months of the
year. The company's gross margin improved dramatically from 21 per cent in
1998 to 48 per cent in 1999.
The company continued to realize significant savings in its expenses. Total
expenses in the first six months of 1999 were nearly half those incurred
during the comparable period in 1998.
The highlight of the quarter was the startup of the Home Depot account in
Colorado. In November, 15 stores ordered five units each. As expected they
sold out quickly and repeat orders began to stream in. Some of the stores
gave the company the premium end of isle display space where its product
was featured along with a television VCR playing the Desert Spring video.
One store sold 90 units over one weekend using this type of display. The
company endeavoured to keep up to its demands during the month of December
and ended the quarter with a company-wide backlog of over 800 units.
The inventory requirements for the Home Depot, and subsequent strain on the
company's cash position, required the company to initiate a private
placement for additional working capital. These finances came in over
December, 1999, and January, 2000.
Platt River, the company's assembler in Denver, Colo., worked very hard to
fill the orders from the Home Depot. To help alleviate some of the
pressure, the company began assembling units out of its Calgary office. All
Canadian orders as well as all the Internet sales in both Canada and the
United States are now filled from Calgary. The company has realized a
$5-per-unit reduction in cost through this process.
Internet sales continued to grow and the company is now selling on average
20 units per week. One of the company's e-commerce retailers,
HighQproducts.com, was so delighted with the sales of the Desert Spring
power humidifier, that he took out advertisements in the upcoming April
issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. HighQproducts expects
significant response from these ads. Air for Life, a manufacturer and
distributor of heating and cooling products in Minneapolis, took delivery of its first order of humidifiers and is now planning to sell its product directly to the contractor over the Internet. It plans to have this system operational by early spring.
During the second quarter, Avante welcomed a new director to the company.
David Michaud, a businessman from Kamloops, B.C., joined us in December and brings valuable investor relations experience to Avante.
Lastly CanStock, publisher of The Canadian On Line Investor wrote a company profile in its December newsletter.
With the recent success of sales at the Home Depot, the company's long-term results with Atco Gas and the growing Internet transactions, it is clear
that retailers are the company's most successful distribution channel.
Avante will concentrate on more of these large retail opportunities in the
future.
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