Electric Fuel Corp. (New York) recently reported results for the year ended December 31, 1999. Net loss for the year ended December 31, 1999, was $6,916,000, or $0.48 per diluted share, as compared to a net loss of $8,532,000, or $0.64 per diluted share for the comparable period in 1998. Revenues for the year were $2,694,000 as compared to $4,013,000 for the prior year.
Research and development expenses and cost of revenues were $6,615,000 for the 12 months of 1999, down from $9,566,000 for 1998. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $3,179,000 in 1999, compared with $3,675,000 in 1998.
"On the one hand, we went through an extremely intensive research and development program to arrive at fantastic results, a battery that gives three to five times the capacity of most rechargeable cellular phone batteries and, on the other hand, we developed in parallel the automated production capacity that will let us bring the battery to the market in a big way," said Yehuda Harats, Electric Fuel's president and CEO. He also noted that these two achievements add up to a technological breakthrough for Electric Fuel. "For the first time, a disposable battery, with all the convenience aspects associated with extended usage time and with being ready to use right out of the pack, is available for high-current, high-tech electronic devices like digital cellular phones."
Electric Fuel also recently announced that it is expanding its cellular phone battery manufacturing capability by announcing that it has received its first automatic production line.
The company has begun installation and integration of the line in its Bet Shemesh facility in Israel. The line was custom-built for Electric Fuel in the US and has the capacity to mass-produce up to 500,000 batteries per month. The company expects the line to be operational at the beginning of the second quarter 2000.
"This is an important step in our strategic road map," said Yehuda Harats. "In addition to the capacity expansion, the automatic production line will allow the company to lower its cost of production."
