Astro-Med Q1 Profit Falls 16.7%

Astro-Med, Inc. ALOT announced 16.7 percent drop in its net earnings for the first quarter despite 8.6 percent increase in its net sales. The company also expects to achieve solid growth, as well as profitability in fiscal 2017. At the same time, it would continue its strategic, purposeful investments necessary to fuel increasing returns for its shareholders.

Astro-Med reported 16.7 percent fall in net income to $1.0 million from $1.2 million while earnings fell 12.5 percent to $0.14 a share from $0.16 a share in the year-ago quarter.

The company's net sales grew 8.6 percent to $24.1 million from $22.2 million in the previous year quarter. The company added that sales in the Product Identification segment advanced 6.1 percent to $16.6 million while sales in the Test & Measurement segment increased 14.4 percent to $7.5 million. Domestic sales witnessed 6.7 percent growth whereas international sales advanced 13.1 percent over the comparable period.

Astro-Med's President and CEO, Gregory Woods, commented, "Our first-quarter performance highlights the progress of AstroNova's ongoing strategic evolution as a global leader in products and technologies that acquire complex signal and network data and then transform it into human-usable formats for visualization and analysis. Our continuing focus on operational excellence, new product development and geographic expansion is helping to drive top-line growth, profitability and free cash flow, positioning us for a bright future."

The company closed the quarter with cash and marketable securities of $23.3 million.

Shares of the company traded 3.43 percent down on Monday.