EXFO improved its financial performance for its full-year fiscal 2019 results, with sales up 6.4% from fiscal 2018 to $286.9 million and a net loss that was trimmed by nearly 80%, to a loss of $2.5 million.
Philippe Morin, EXFO CEO, said in a statement that he is “pleased [that] EXFO significantly improved its profitability in fiscal 2019 … while achieving solid growth in sales, bookings and cash flows from operations.”
Morin also said that EXFO has now fully integrated its acquisition of Astellia, in order to “create disruptive solutions that will support our growth objectives.” Astellia was a big contributor to the company’s sales, with EXFO’s Service Assurance, Systems and Services (SASS) sales up 16.2% compared to the year 2018; the company said this was largely due to a full-year contribution from the Astellia acquisition, as well as a multi-million dollar contract win for EXFO’s network topology and automation solution.
EXFO’s test and measurement sales were up 3.7% year-over-year. T&M continues to be its largest sales segment, generating nearly $205 million over the course of the year compared to the SASS segment sales of about $88 million for the full year fiscal 2019.
The region where EXFO saw the most sales growth was in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (9.5%), followed by the Americas (6.3%) and Asia-Pacific (1.6%).
“Based on sound operational discipline, we completed our restructuring plan, bolstered efficiency and maintained our proven innovation capabilities,” Morin said. “Overall, I am confident we have assembled the key building blocks to generate long-term growth supported by a highly differentiated offering for fiber, 5G mobility and network virtualization.”
The company expects sales between $70 million and $75 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2020, compared to sales of $70.2 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. EXFO still expects to report a slight loss in the coming quarter.
In other test news:
-Crowdsourced user experience data company Tutela published new analysis this week on how mobile virtual network operators such as Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile, Charter’s Spectrum Mobile and Google Fi, among others, are transforming the competitive landscape for postpaid wireless service — and how MVNOs are using multiple networks or traffic handling to provide what is, in some cases, a better user experience than the host network. Read the full story here.
–Keysight Technologies said that the consumer division of Bureau Veritas will be using Keysight’s 5G conformance test solutions for certification of 5G New Radio devices globally.
–Rohde & Schwarz network monitoring and analytics company ipoque has a new software IP probe called the R&S Net Sensor OEM, which it is targeting for network analytics, cybersecurity vendors and system integrators. The new deep-packet-inspection-based probe will be featured at the upcoming Mobile World Congress Los Angeles event. Rohde and Schwarz described the probe as lightweight, customizable and scalable, and said it offers a solution so that analytics or security companies don’t have to build their own probes, or spend a lot of time and effort in development and integration of the probe.
R&S also recently said that it has introduced the first 10BASE-T1S compliance test available for its R&S RTO and R&S RTP oscilloscopes in order to support fully automated testing of automotive Ethernet interfaces based on the current version of the IEEE 802.3cg 10BASE-T1S interface standards.
–Tektronix has a new software plug-in for evaluating power efficiency that is available for iits AFG31000 Arbitrary/Function Generator, which it says can perform double-pulse testing in less than a minute.
Double pulse testing, the company explained, is used by researchers and engineers in the power and semiconductor industries in order to “measure and evaluate the switching parameters and dynamic behavior of power devices, including those made from wide bandgap materials such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN).”
–Ethernet Alliance said it has seen increased interest across the industry for its series of members-only High-Speed Networking plugfests, the latest of which will be held next week at the University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Lab.
“The rising number of new companies participating in our HSN plugfest series illustrates just how far these rapidly maturing Ethernet technologies are spreading. The drive to deliver more products to market faster is fueling a surge in participation from companies seeking to take part in our plugfests,” said Greg McSorley, president of Ethernet Alliance and technical business development manager at Amphenol, in a statement. “Plugfests are a cost-effective avenue for companies to securely test against an array of costly equipment – particularly pre-release products – that they may not have otherwise had access to.”
