Can this POS company actually be turning around???
And with no end in sight fer the power shortage it may just continue....RS of 99 up over 200% since Dec and 30% in 50 daze....I'll be watching close...
Itron, Inc. Books Over $70 Million in New Orders in Q1; Largest Order -- a $39.5 Million Mobile AMR Order in Electric Systems
SPOKANE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 26, 2001--Itron, Inc. (Nasdaq:ITRI), announced today that it has booked over 70 million in new orders so far in the first quarter.
"We are very pleased with our progress in the first quarter in securing new and add-on business in all three of our markets -- electric, natural gas, and water," said LeRoy Nosbaum, Itron president and CEO. "Our bookings momentum in the two segments of our business that are in the midst of deregulation -- the electric and gas industries -- reflects continued progress in furthering our customers understanding that Itron automation technology not only meets a utility's operational needs, but assists them in meeting their strategic goals as well."
The largest order during the quarter was a 39.5 million contract from a large, multi-national electric utility and represents an add-on order to an initial order received from this utility last September. The add-on order includes 800,000 of Itron's radio-based meter modules along with Itron's mobile automatic meter reading (AMR) communications technology, that enables module-equipped meters to be read by a vehicle as it drives down the street. Installation of the first phase, which covered 300,000 meters is well under way with over 165,000 meter modules installed to date. Installation of the second phase is expected to begin immediately and will take approximately two years to complete.
"Mobile AMR results in immediate benefits to utilities in terms of reductions in meter reading costs, increased accuracy, elimination of estimated reads, reductions in customer complaints and call center traffic, improved customer satisfaction and improved safety," said Russ Vanos, Itron Electric Systems vice president. "The short payback time for mobile AMR, along with the ability to migrate from our mobile solution to more advanced forms of metering, was a unique differentiator and an important reason why this utility chose Itron."
In addition to the large electric order, new order bookings so far in the first quarter for Itron's Natural Gas Systems business unit and its Water and Public Power Systems business unit total over 11 million, and 10 million, respectively.
Itron is a leading technology provider and source of knowledge to the energy and water industry for collecting, analyzing and applying mission critical data about electric, gas and water usage. Itron technology touches more than 200 billion in energy and water transactions annually in North America. Today, Itron systems are installed at approximately 2,000 utilities in over 45 countries around the world and are being used to collect data from 275 million electric, gas and water meters. Of those, more than 650 customers use Itron's radio and telephone-based technology to automatically collect information from 17.6 million of those meters. Itron technology has also recently been chosen by a number of wholesale energy markets in the U.S. and Canada to provide critical billing and settlement systems for those deregulating markets.
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