Redwood City, CA Ð Beneath the clamor of NeXT's restructuring, NeXT quietly posted upbeat financial results for the fourth quarter to end a respectable 1992. Sales totaled $140 million for the year and $45 million for the fourth quarter.
NeXT sold about 20,000 units in 1992, bringing the total installed base for black hardware, including the last few units sold in 1993, to almost 53,000. Revenues increased ten percent, from $127 million in 1991. Asian sales were flat for all of 1992, while European sales began to rebound after a disastrous first half.
North American revenues, accounting for 70 percent of all NeXT sales, were up 36 percent, to $98 million, from $72 million in the previous year. Fourth-quarter North American sales posted a 41 percent gain over 1991.
More importantly, the company achieved profitability for the first time, recognizing an operating profit of $1 million before in-terest payments on funds drawn against NeXT's credit line with Canon and CEO Steve Jobs. Sources place the results just shy of performance goals set by Canon and NeXT.
"We achieved profitability in Q4 on the basis of increased revenues, higher gross margins, and reduced expenses," said NeXT President Peter van Cuylenburg.
NeXT sales grew at twice the 4.2 percent rate for workstations as a whole, according to IDC. Sun, NeXT's avowed enemy in hardware, grew 15 percent in Q4, while its profits actually declined. Sources report that NeXT's restructuring was necessary because Q4 results were not good enough to assure avoiding serious losses in the first half of 1993.