Cree LEDs recently illuminated a new span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the latest sign of the firm’s growing prominence in LED lighting, and it reported record income for its last fiscal year on Tuesday. But forecast future revenue didn’t quite match analysts’ expectations.
The news sent Cree (Nasdaq: CREE) shares down in after-hours trading.
However, in a conference call with analysts, Chief Financial Officer Mike McDevitt dropped a hint that Cree is eyeing another market for growth.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Chuck Swoboda declined to discuss possible acquisitions as he hinted at in an April conference call, and he reaffirmed the company’s commitment to keep Home Depot as its primary retail partner for LED bulbs.
But Cree obviously continues to look for ways to grow its business, and Colin Rusch of Northland Capital asked what the company’s thinking is for its “lighting fixture road map.”
McDevitt responded to the question and dropped the hint. His remarks as provided in a transcript of the call by financial news website SeekingAlpha:
What’s the Road Map?
“Yeah. So Colin, we don’t breakout specific products that we’re working on, but what you shouldn’t assume is that we complete in several market segments. We have a fairly important outdoor lighting business that is both a street municipal lighting business. We have, I would call, a kind of an outdoor canopy parking garage business. And then in the indoor we have kind of these area lights as well as the down light business.
“If you look at those major fixture areas, we will continue to innovate next generation products in those areas. So those are areas we want to continue to focus on. In the last year we added the industrial segment, so we came out with a high rate fixtures. So we will look for incremental market opportunities, but I would say most of our effort is next generation or products to better serve the markets we’re already in.
“And then the third piece to keep in mind is that within the lighting segment we have the bulb, so we have things like DTA replacement lamp that’s just came out that really allows us to keep it in the indoor space, but much more from a retrofit standpoint and then the consumables are also something we can bring into the commercial market.
“So it’s really where the bulbs are focused and those five kind of major areas just how we think about the lighting market has potential to go after another segment, but we wouldn’t want to put that out there until the time we’re ready to announce that.”
The full transcript can be read online.
