From the March 6 call:
We also expect that you'll see the introduction of more architectural projects this year, both with the traditional method of replacing the glass with SPD SmartGlass and also retrofitting SPD SmartGlass to the inside of homes and buildings to make the building envelope smart. No one else out there can retrofit smart windows.
This retrofit application promises to make it less expensive and less disruptive to building occupants to convert existing buildings from having ordinary glass to SPD SmartGlass and will speed up the sales cycle considerably.
Our licensee with this patented retrofit system has built an impressive manufacturing facility with high capacity supporting this retrofit application. Next year, we can see market expansion from other areas as well.
Q... but any real world indication that there’s room for SPD in a PDLC sunroof world outside of the super expensive aspirational kind of vehicles and the timeline for the architectural retrofit?
A. Well, I mentioned that we expect the retrofit to generate revenues this year.
And in closing:
Because of the nature of the industries we're in, winning a project today often results in many years of business. The typical car model has a seven-year life and the typical aircraft model much longer. We go elephant hunting, and nobody is better at this than us and our licensees, and it creates steady revenues from each of the programs that last for years as we land these programs.
In areas like architectural, the numbers can be even bigger by virtue of the sheer magnitude of the size of the glass market for buildings and homes. Also, the sales cycle can be much shorter than aircraft and automotive, especially now with the SPD SmartGlass retrofit application.
Several of our competitors who have raised massive amounts of money and inevitably spent even more than they raised, notably companies such as View and Halio went bankrupt this year. Another company just got delisted. Part of this relates to the limitations in their technologies. And part of this is that they were only able to approach one market, and part of this was simply not paying attention to key areas of their business.
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