Corvis Has $650 Million Backlog
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Corvis Communications Corp. said on Wednesday that it has $650 million in unfilled orders for its long-distance optical networking equipment products, and has no plans to change its financial outlook for the year.
At a Banc of America conference for technology investors, David Huber, Corvis' chief executive, said that demand is as strong as ever for ultra-high bandwidth data transmission products such as those made by Corvis.
"The excess capacity that's been talked about in the industry, I don't believe it's there," said Huber, who was also a co-founder of telecommunications equipment giant, Ciena Corp. .
Corvis, based in Columbia, MD., has three major telecommunications service provider customers: Williams Communications Group Inc. , Qwest Communications International , and Broadwing Communications .
It is in negotiations with a number of other telecommunications operators around the world that are in "different states of maturation", said Chief Financial Officer Anne Stuart, adding that Corvis hoped to sign up 1 or 2 additional customers by the first half of this year.
At its fourth-quarter earnings report in late January, Corvis posted a net loss of $89.7 million, or 27 cents per share, on revenue of $46 million, up from $22.9 million in the third quarter -- the first quarter Corvis had any revenues.
Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial project Corvis to post revenues of $312 for the fiscal year ending December.
Corvis was up 10 percent in regular Nasdaq trade on Wednesday to $19-1/2. The stock has lost 26 percent of its value since the start of the year.
Corvis said that its share lock-up expired on January 23 and that 255 million shares were released at that time. Stuart said that slightly less than half of the became fully liquid at that point.
"Some VCs (venture capitalists) have not distributed their shares," she said. "They are long-term investors in the company, and didn't feel the need to monetize."
Separately, the company announced on Wednesday two optical networking products for sending large amounts of data over long distance fiber-optic lines.
The products are billed as less expensive than rival long-haul networking products aimed at telecommunications service providers because they do not require the use of optical "amplifiers" to ensure that the data signal reaches its destination.
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