NEW YORK-It was a glowing quarter for Brightpoint Inc., Indianapolis, which reported significant increases in net sales, income and income per share.
The company, a worldwide distributor of wireless handsets and accessories, closed the fourth quarter of its fiscal year Dec. 31 with $373.2 million in net sales, a 76 percent increase from the last quarter of 1996. For the full Fiscal Year 1997, net sales totaled $1.04 billion, also a 76 percent rise above 1996.
In the fourth quarter of 1997, net sales were derived 40 percent from Brightpoint’s Asia-Pacific division, 28 percent from its Europe, Middle East and Africa division, 21 percent from the North America division and 11 percent from its Latin America division. That geographic distribution held fairly steady throughout the year, said J. Mark Howell, president and chief operating officer.
Within the Asia-Pacific division, sales to China accounted for about 30 percentage points, Australia for 8 and the Philippines for 2, said Phillip A. Bounsall, chief financial officer.
“In Hong Kong and China, we’ve seen no negative impact on the demand side. There is continued strong demand in Australia. In the Philippines, we manage inventory management and fulfillment for prepaid [services],” he said.
Bounsall added that Brightpoint hasn’t seen and doesn’t anticipate a slowdown in its Asian business. The company is in the process of opening a new facility in Taiwan. Brightpoint now has 19 operations in 15 countries.
Howell noted that demand in China for high-end phones by Nokia Corp. and L.M. Ericsson has far outstripped supply. Overall, however, the proportion of its sales from major handset manufacturers remained pretty constant all year long, he said. Nokia and Ericsson each accounted for about a third, with the remainder supplied by Motorola Inc., Philips Consumer Communications and Siemens Wireless Terminals.
Latin America, which accounted for 11 percent of sales at the end of 1997 compared with 3 percent a year earlier, is another growth area for Brightpoint. The distributor acquired companies in Venezuela and Brazil late last year. A new facility in Argentina is expected to become operational in February.
Brightpoint concluded its latest quarter with net income of $9.3 million, or 18 cents per share on a diluted basis, a 105 percent increase compared with the fourth quarter a year ago. For the latest complete fiscal year, net income on a diluted basis totaled $25.51 million, or 53 cents per share diluted, up 102 percent from the preceding year.
Reporting earnings on a fully diluted basis is the most conservative way to present them because doing so takes into account all possible combinations of securities that could reduce, or dilute, earnings per share of common stock-including the exercise of warrants and stock options and the conversion of convertible bonds and preferred stock.
