Electric Fuel Shutters Brick-And-Mortar Battery Business
By Jeff Malester -- TWICE, 12/9/2002
New York— Electric Fuel, makers of Instant Power batteries and cell chargers for cellphones and PDAs, has discontinued its retail consumer battery products operation as of the third quarter of 2002.
Electric Fuel, although it is halting sales of its refuelable zinc-air fuel-cell products in traditional retail outlets, said it will continue to offer retail battery sales online.
"The business didn't post much revenue in comparison to assembly lines," said Conrad Mir, Electric Fuel's managing director of investment relations, when comparing retail sales to the company's commercial enterprises. Electric Fuel will shift its bread-and-butter battery technology to defense and security products, military applications and electric vehicles such as buses.
"We are planning to sell through our current inventory," said Mir about retail distribution, "then we will reposition our product lines as to the amount of output," which he said would be far less for online sales.
Electric Fuel, which reported a 416 percent revenue increase in the third quarter, ending Sept. 30, to $3.3 million, from $632,344 in the same quarter in 2001, said gross profit climbed to $1.6 million in the third quarter, from $43,326 in the previous three months.
The company recorded a net loss of $9.6 million for the third quarter, compared with a net loss of $4.4 million in the year-ago three months.
