Vuzix reports disappointing second quarter results

Vuzix Corp. this week reported a drop in sales and a bottom-line loss in the second quarter.

For the quarter ended June 30, the smart-glasses and augmented reality supplier posted revenue of $2.9 million, down from $3 million in the second quarter of 2020. Total operating expenses increased from $5 million last year to $9.3 million this year, contributing to a net loss of $8.8 million in the quarter.

Vuzix CEO Paul Travers said 2021 has been and will continue to be a transformative year for the Rochester company.

“We now have roughly $138 million of cash as of mid-year, have expanded our management, R&D and sales teams, established a new SaaS-based Integrated Solutions Business Unit and are aggressively pursuing other strategic initiatives that will strengthen and extend our business model from one primarily focused on being an industry leader in smart glasses hardware to also now becoming a broader solutions provider in various high-growth market verticals,” Travers said in a statement.

Travers said the company spent time reviewing the needs of its largest cornerstone customers during the quarter and making changes to operations based on those needs. Vuzix also has set the foundation for other markets that are showing leadership in broad-based smart glasses deployments.

“We continued to see steady year-over-year growth in our core smart glasses business with second-quarter smart glasses sales rising 21 percent,” Travers said. “The healthcare portion of our business continues to accelerate with our smart glasses now being used in approximately 1,000 operating rooms worldwide for an ever-expanding set of surgical applications, as just one example of utility in healthcare.”

The company’s focus for the remainder of the year will be on developing and delivering against growing enterprise smart glasses opportunities while extending its market participation and its business model.

“To foster these growing market segments, we will focus on strategic initiatives that we believe will both accelerate the adoption of smart glasses in the enterprise market and unlock significant value for Vuzix shareholders,” Travers said. “We will also continue to develop our core technologies and next-generation products that we believe will be vital to enabling broader market adoption in support of enterprise, defense, aerospace and OEM smart glasses manufacturers. Finally, we will further expand our sales channels and deliver hand-to-glove service to our cornerstone customers to support large-scale adoption of Vuzix smart glasses while continuing to pave the way for enabling additional new market adoption globally.”

For the second half of 2021, Travers said the company expects top-line growth in sales as a result of strong smart-glasses demand and the expected return of OEM-related engineering services revenue and initial sales of OEM production units to a Tier-1 defense customer.

Shares of company stock (Nasdaq: VUZI) tumbled on Tuesday following its earnings report but had rebounded some Wednesday to $13.02.

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