OTTAWA, ON, February 15 /CNW/ - AIT Corporation today reported net income
of $110,000 on revenue of $3 million for the first quarter ended December 31,
1998. The results represent a 25% increase in revenue over the same quarter
last year, when the Company recorded a $220,000 net loss on revenue of $2.4
million. The Company generated $404,000 in cash from operations during the
first quarter.
AIT sold its Interactive Security Products division in October 1998, a
move intended to return the Company to profitability by concentrating all of
its resources on its core business of Identification Products. ''Our plan of
focusing our efforts in areas where we have traditionally been dominant is
beginning to show results,'' said Bernie Ashe, AIT's President and CEO. ''We
announced important deals with the US State Department, Singapore, and the
British Virgin Islands during the quarter - these contracts show strength in
both the issuance and inspection markets we serve with our products.'' In
particular, the market for remote issuance of passports and visas in consulate
and embassy operations bodes well for the Company's GenIE product.
The airline industry continues to provide a new market opportunity for
the Company's core reader technology. ''We are very pleased with the early
results from the airline market. British Airways is continuing its roll out
of the PAX Reader in the United States and we are in various stages of product
evaluation with several other major airlines. We remain confident that this
market will be a growth market for AIT,'' said Mr. Ashe.
GenIE is a software product for the issuance of secure documents. The PAX
Reader is a multi-function data capture device that uses Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) technology and the ability to decode magnetic stripe
information to read travel documents such as airline tickets, boarding passes,
passports, visas, and identification cards.
AIT Corporation is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and is the
world's leading supplier of systems for the issuance and inspection of
machine-readable travel documents. AIT stock is traded on the Toronto Stock
Exchange under the symbol AIV |
