This represents a growth in sales from $57.9 million in the year-ago quarter, but net income fell from $4.1 million, or $0.21 per diluted share.
The company attributed its sales growth to "the excellent market acceptance of our products, expansion of uses of electronic displays and successes with various other initiatives."
However, James Morgan, president and CEO, said that Daktronics was disappointed in the margin levels on orders booked during the quarter that resulted in a greater than expected decline in the gross profit percentage.
For fiscal 2005, net sales, net income and earnings per share for fiscal 2005 were $230.3 million, $15.7 million and $0.78 per diluted share, respectively, compared with $209.9 million, $17.7 million, and $0.89 per diluted share, respectively, for the previous fiscal year.
Backlog at the end of the fiscal 2005 fourth quarter was approximately $73 million, compared with a backlog of approximately $54 million at the end of the last fiscal year. The timing of large orders can cause significant fluctuations in the company's backlog.
Orders that contributed to our record quarter for order bookings include display systems for the Kuwait Stock Exchange, the St. Louis Cardinals, the University of Georgia, the new Charlotte Arena, the University of Iowa, Clemson University, Clear Channel, and many others. We also completed a number of installations, including the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Lakewood Church in Houston, Rolland Garros in Paris, the site of the French Open Tennis Tournament, RFK Stadium in Washington, PNC Stadium in Pittsburgh, and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Morgan added, "We continued to see excellent growth of our commercial market, which experienced a net sales growth of over 40% for the year. On the sports side of our business, we continued to perform well domestically, with the growth partially offset by a decline in the international business. Transportation market revenue for the year was down slightly compared to last year, although orders were up slightly as we built backlog in that area as well.
The company's estimates for the next quarter are sales in the range of $64 to $72 million, with earnings per share in the range of $0.22 to $0.32. For fiscal year 2006, the company estimates that sales will grow in excess of 15%.
Daktronics sells SportsLink mobile video systems business
Daktronics has completed the sale of certain assets of its SportsLink® video rental services business to Impact Video, a leading large screen video rental and services company based in Burbank, California. The transaction includes the sale of seven trailer-mounted ProStar® LED video screens with semi tractors, ProStar® LED video sections, and associated control system equipment. The deal was completed for cash and resulted in a gain of slightly less than $2 million for Daktronics.
