POET Technologies Reports Full Year 2017 Financial Results

POET Technologies Inc (TSXV:PTK), a designer, developer and manufacturer of optoelectronic devices including light sources, passive wave guides and Photonic Integrated Circuits for data communication and telecom markets reported its audited condensed financial results for the year ended December 31, 2017.

As quoted in the press release:

2017 and Recent Highlights:

• Revenue increased 50% year-on-year to US$2.79 million and gross margin expanded to 52%;
• Introduced new datacom and sensing products, including distributed feedback (DFB) lasers for the datacom market and a new family of narrow linewidth (NLW) lasers for the distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) market;
• Granted 6 patents and submitted another 6 new applications in 2017, bringing the total granted to 57 and the number of pending patent applications to 12;
• Appointed three highly-experienced members to the Board of Directors within the last seven months: Jean-Louis Malinge, Don Listwin and Peter Charbonneau;
• Announced the Optical Interposer^TM platform, which leverages POET’s dielectric waveguide technology to facilitate the co-packaging of electronics and optics in a single multi-chip module;
• Successfully demonstrated a high-frequency waveguide integrated PIN Photodiode targeting 100G and 400G optical transceivers for data center applications;
• Signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Accelink for the co-development, qualification and sales of a family of transceiver products based on POET’s Optical Interposer^TM platform;
• Completed a successful “bought deal” public offering in March 2018, resulting in gross proceeds of approximately US10.8 million (C$13.8 million); and
• Entered into a master collaboration agreement with SilTerra, a Malaysia-based semiconductor wafer foundry, for the co-development of certain fabrication processes and the manufacturing of POET’s Optical Interposer platform.

Financial Summary
Revenue for the full year 2017 increased to US$2.79 million, reflecting higher sales of photonic sensors for test & measurement applications. This compared to revenue of US$1.86 million in calendar year 2016, which represented approximately seven months of revenue contribution from POET’s DenseLight subsidiary that the Company acquired in May 2016. Gross margin for the full year 2017 was 52%, compared with 49% in 2016. Net loss before taxes in 2017 was (US$13.1) million, or ($0.05) per share, compared with a net loss before taxes of (US$13.4) million, or ($0.06) per share, in 2016. The net loss in 2017 included non-cash stock-based compensation of US$3.2 million and depreciation & amortization of US$2.3 million. In 2016, non-cash stock-based compensation and depreciation & amortization were US$4.1 million and US$1.5 million, respectively. Capital investment in plant, equipment and patents decreased to $1.0 million in 2017 compared to $1.3 million in 2016.

“During 2017, we made significant progress across several areas of the business. From a financial perspective, we increased revenue 50% year-over-year with the increased shipments of light sources for sensing applications,” Suresh Venkatesan, Chief Executive Officer of POET said. “Additionally, we recorded approximately $1.7 million in credits from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) in support of our ongoing research and development efforts at our DenseLight facility.”

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