Sarine Technologies recorded its first quarterly profit this year amid solid demand for its Galaxy diamond-mapping equipment.
Profit for the three months ending September 30 came to $234,000. While the figure was 13% lower than during the comparable period a year ago, it followed consecutive net losses of $1.4 million in the first and second quarters.
Revenue for the July-to-September period grew 21% year on year to $14.2 million, as the company sold a record number of its mapping machines for small diamonds. However, a higher proportion of the sales were from its less lucrative flat-fee plans, rather than those in which users pay per diamond scanned, which nets higher revenue, the equipment manufacturer noted.
Revenue in India, Sarine’s biggest market, climbed 41% to $10.4 million. North American sales more than doubled to $792,000, while in Israel, revenue fell 12% to $587,000. Sales slid 33% to $837,000 in Africa, and dropped 63% to $231,000 in Europe.
For the nine months ending September 30, group revenue fell 21% to 36.7 million, with the company recording a net loss of $2.6 million for the period. The loss stemmed from the challenging market in the first half of the year, amid tightened bank credit to the Indian manufacturing sector, the US-China tariff war, and weakened consumer sentiment in Hong Kong due to the ongoing protests, Sarine explained.
