Immersion believes nearly 400 million cellphones using basic haptics have...
Immersion believes nearly 400 million cellphones using basic haptics have shipped to date without licensing the company’s haptics technology, CEO Vic Viegas said on an earnings call Thursday. That’s up from the more than 200 million he cited in August.…
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“It’s those phones that we expect to monetize and turn into revenue,” Viegas said Thursday. Immersion revenue for Q3 ended Sept. 30 grew 10 percent year-over-year to $7.1 million. But its loss widened to $3 million, or 11 cents a share, from $1.4 million, or 5 cents. Immersion shares, however, closed 2.5 percent higher Friday at $4.55. Royalty and license revenue grew 8 percent to $6.4 million. Revenue from product sales jumped 53 percent to $529,000. Forty-nine percent of total Q3 revenue came from mobility, while 24 percent was from game products, 16 percent from medical products, 7 percent from autos, and 4 percent from chips and other products, said Chief Financial Officer Paul Norris. “As mobile device manufacturers increasingly recognize” the benefits of Immersion’s haptic technology solutions, “we are licensing new technologies, deepening our customer relationships and expanding our market presence in important new geographies including Japan and China,” said Viegas. Immersion continues to “penetrate the China smartphone market, primarily through our chip partners who are having success selling our solutions into this market,” he said. “As we have started ramping our efforts in the region, we've seen three OEMs in China ship over 5 million handsets” using Immersion technology so far this year, he said. In Q3, Samsung rolled out new versions of the Galaxy S III smartphone, which he said includes Immersion’s TouchSense 3000 software and Reverb technology for mobile gaming. Samsung also launched the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet that he said includes TouchSense 3000 software. Immersion continues to “engage in discussions with current and new customers to license basic haptics,” he said. While the “final result and timing of these discussions remains unknown,” he said “we continue to believe there is potential for Immersion to monetize unrealized opportunities for basic haptics in the current fiscal year.” Immersion still expects to report revenue of $32 million to $38 million for this fiscal year, he said.