JULY 21--Cognex (Natick, MA, USA; www.cognex.com)announced its financial results for the second quarter ended July 2, 2006. "I am very pleased with our results for the second quarter of 2006," said Dr. Robert J. Shillman, company chairman and CEO. "We reported significant increases both year-on-year and sequentially at both the top and bottom lines. We were highly profitable with net income equal to 18% of revenue (or 22% excluding stock option expense). And, we reported earnings of $0.24 per share, which was better than Wall Street's consensus expectations."
Shillman continued, "Our outlook for Q3 is cautious; the factory automation market is typically soft during the summer months, and demand from the semiconductor and electronics capital equipment market seems to have reached a peak. As a result, we now expect that third quarter revenue will be between $61 million and $64 million, and earnings per diluted share will be between $0.19 and $0.23.
Revenue for the second quarter of 2006 increased 16% over the second quarter of 2005 due primarily to higher revenues from the semiconductor and electronics capital equipment market, and, to a lesser extent, the factory automation market. On a sequential basis revenue increased 7% due to higher revenue from both the surface inspection and factory automation markets.
In other news, Cognex announced that it has received a purchase order worth over a quarter of a million dollars from a leading supplier to the aerospace industry. The customer has purchased Cognex's DataMan 7500 handheld ID readers for a major project requiring part traceability.
This supplier will use the readers to identify and track jet engine turbine blades for internal process control purposes, and to comply with US Department of Defense regulations that now require that unique and permanent identifying marks be placed on every item that is serialized, mission critical or which has a value greater than $5,000.
