Today, OurPet’s Company announced that its net revenues for the first quarter of 2009 increased 16.7% to $3,390,379 from $2,905,264 for the same period in 2008. Net income for the quarter totaled $78,610, compared to a net loss of $391,472 for the same period in 2008. Earnings, before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), were $244,054 in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a negative $220,222 in 2008’s first quarter.
Dr. Steven Tsengas, President and CEO, commented, “We are extremely pleased about our record sales for the 2009 first quarter, despite the difficult business environment for many of our customers. The sales increase for the quarter was primarily the result of higher sales of products across all our product lines. In addition, we experienced a substantial increase of $508,591 in revenue from our two largest customers mainly due to new product introductions and additional product penetration.
“We have expanded our R&D group and continue to develop new, innovative, trend setting, proprietary products utilizing our extensive knowledge about pets, pet owners and engineering/process technologies,” he continued. “During the first quarter of 2009 we introduced our new Flappy (www.flappydogtoys.com) brand of dog toys. Our initial production run sold out quicker than any of our previous product introductions. We are optimistic that this line of products will become a significant contributor to both 2009 revenues and earnings. We expect the retailing industry will remain difficult for sometime as consumers have tightened their spending habits. With this said, we see many opportunities in the pet industry, which continues to show relative resilience within the overall challenging retail industry. We remain guardedly optimistic that the balance of 2009 will see continued revenue and earnings growth as we continue implementing our strategic business plan.”
Dr. Tsengas concluded, “Our earnings for the first quarter continued to be adversely affected by the litigation expenses that we incurred in defending against the patent infringement lawsuits filed against us. On April 7, 2009, the December 2008 decision by the International Trade Commission was upheld. We plan on pursuing further appeals on the one patent claim that we lost and we plan to certify that our new revised product is non-infringing so that we can continue to import and supply our customers.”
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