EXFO posts Q4 sales of US$69 million

EXFO reported sales in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 of US$69.2 million compared to US$63.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Annual sales improved 10.8% to US$269.5 million in fiscal 2018 from US$243.3 million in 2017. IFRS net loss amounted to US$4.0 million, or US$0.07 per share, compared to net earnings of US$0.8 million, or US$0.02 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2017. In fiscal 2018, IFRS net loss totaled US$11.9 million, or US$0.22 per share, compared to net earnings of US$0.9 million, or US$0.02 per share, in 2017.

Bookings totaled US$63.1 million for a book-to-bill ratio of 0.91 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 compared to US$66.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Overall for fiscal 2018, bookings increased 6.3% to US$267.7 million for a book-to-bill ratio of 0.99 from US$251.8 million in 2017.

Gross margin before depreciation and amortization* attained 60.4% of sales in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 compared 61.9% in the fourth quarter of 2017. Gross margin before depreciation and amortization included restructuring charges of 0.7% of sales in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2017. In fiscal 2018, gross margin before depreciation and amortization reached 61.0% of sales compared to 61.2% in 2017. Gross margin before depreciation and amortization included restructuring charges of 0.2% of sales in 2018 and 0.7% in 2017.

"During fiscal 2018, we made significant progress to strategically transform EXFO into a supplier of software-intensive, end-to-end solutions and analytics for fiber, mobile and virtualized networks," said Philippe Morin, EXFO's Chief Executive Officer. "While communications service providers are undergoing fundamental changes to their business models and network architectures with upcoming 5G and IoT deployments, EXFO has positioned itself as a supplier of choice delivering superior network performance, service reliability and subscriber insights through the acquisitions of Astellia and Ontology. Although these transformations are mostly unfolding according to plan, I am disappointed with our financial results in 2018 due to deal delays and the current market environment," Mr. Morin added. "Nonetheless, we have planned significant improvements for 2019 with an increased focus on execution."