Three-Five Reports Income, Customer Gains

TEMPE, Ariz., July 17 -- Three-Five Systems Inc., designer and manufacturer of liquid crystal display (LCD) modules for OEM customers, reported net sales of $44.9 million in the second quarter ended June 30, 42 percent more than revenue of $31.6 million for the same 1999 period. This year's net income reached $4.4 million, four times more than last year's $1 million net income.
The company has also won 13 design programs for new customers since the beginning of 2000. Eight of the new customers are in the mobile handset business and several of the wins are for products that will be sold in China, the company said. Nine of the design wins came in this year's second quarter, they were for LCD modules to be used in products such as mobile handsets, MP3 players, pagers and PDAs. The annualized opportunity of these second quarter customer wins alone totals about 15 million units and is almost equal to the company's current annualized production volumes. In addition, an estimated 75 percent of those15 million units would be for new customers.