Vicor Corporation reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016. Revenues for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016 decreased to $46,027,000, compared to $64,017,000 for the corresponding period a year ago, and decreased from $51,394,000 for the fourth quarter of 2015. First quarter bookings decreased to $49,000,000 from $59,541,000 for the corresponding period a year ago, but increased from $46,636,000 for the fourth quarter of 2015.
Gross margin decreased to $19,316,000 for the first quarter of 2016, compared to $28,891,000 for the corresponding period a year ago, and decreased from $22,831,000 for the fourth quarter of 2015. Gross margin, as a percentage of revenue, decreased to 42.0% for the first quarter of 2016, compared to 45.1% for the first quarter of 2015, and 44.4% for the fourth quarter of 2015.
Net loss for the first quarter was ($5,351,000), or ($0.14) per share, compared to net income of $3,371,000, or $0.09 per diluted share, for the corresponding period a year ago and a net loss of ($1,752,000), or ($0.05) per share, for the fourth quarter of 2015.
Cash used for operating activities totaled $834,000 for the first quarter of 2016, compared to cash provided by operations of $5,070,000 for the corresponding period a year ago. Cash and cash equivalents sequentially decreased by $3,270,000 to approximately $59,710,000 at the end of the first quarter of 2016 from $62,980,000 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015. Total backlog at the end of the first quarter of 2016 was $42,096,000, compared to $39,073,000 at the end of 2015.
Addressing first quarter's results, Dr. Patrizio Vinciarelli, Chief Executive Officer, commented, "The circumstances described in connection with our fourth quarter and full year results continued to have a negative influence on our revenue and profitability. Weakness in demand for our legacy products contributed to poor capacity utilization. As described before, our profitability is highly correlated with production volume, and pivots on a breakeven point of nearly $55 million in revenue. Given the volume of new opportunities for advanced products and an anticipated rebound of our legacy business, we expect to be profitable for the second half of 2016."
Dr. Vinciarelli continued, "Highlighting the first quarter, our differentiated solutions for powering datacenter processors from a 48V bus have received unprecedented attention from existing and potential customers, after the announcement by Google of its joining the Open Compute Project (OCP), contributing its 48V server rack specifications as a first step to drive adoption of 48V architecture in datacenters. Google's advocacy affirms the superiority of a 48V power system infrastructure, and our years of investment in Factorized Power Systems leveraging 48V have put us in a leadership position for the long-expected uptake of more dense and efficient power system solutions. Other encouraging announcements within the quarter included the expansion of the OCP Telco Project, which is focused on the application of OCP's datacenter solutions to communication systems, which have used 48V in their traditional infrastructure. Numerous vendors, already familiar with 48V, will now be exposed to the density and efficiency advantages of Factorized Power systems in datacenters."
