NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Fluidigm's second-quarter revenues increased 36 percent year over year, with growth in both its instruments and consumables sales, the South San Francisco, Calif.-based firm said after the close of the market on Thursday.
For the three months ended June 30, total revenues were $17.5 million, compared to $12.9 million for the second quarter of 2012, and beating the average Wall Street estimate of $15.9 million.
During the quarter, Fluidigm posted $17.3 million in product revenues, a 35 percent increase from $12.8 million, a year ago, while license and grant revenues were up 18 percent to $213,000 from $180,000. Within product revenues, instrument revenues increased 48 percent year over year to $10.2 million from $6.9 million. Consumables revenues grew 20 percent to $7.1 million from $5.9 million.
Fluidigm President and CEO Gajus Worthington said in a statement that the quarter's revenue growth was "catalyzed by accelerating adoption of its C1 Single-Cell Auto Prep System," solidifying its leadership in single-cell genomics. Single-cell genomics revenue more than doubled year over year, "and we have achieved record instrument revenue for the quarter," Worthington added.
He noted on a conference call following the release of the results that the firm introduced a single-cell microRNA expression profiling protocol this week, and that it hopes to introduce a single-cell whole-genome amplification chip by the end of the year.
Fluidigm said that its installed instrument base increased to about 780 units at the end of the second quarter. Analytical systems — BioMark, BioMark HD, and EP1 — made up 62 percent of the installed base, while preparatory systems — Access Array and C1 — comprised the remaining 38 percent.
CFO Vikram said on the call that sales in the US accounted for 59 percent of Q2 product revenues, European revenues were 26 percent, Asia Pacific revenues were 9 percent, Japanese revenues were 2 percent, and revenues from other geographies made up 4 percent.
While Jog said that Fluidigm was "very pleased with growth in the two largest geographies" – the US and Europe, which each grew 56 percent year over year – revenues in Japan were down over the prior year period.
Worthington acknowledged that from a revenue perspective, Japan was "weak" in Q2, but noted that the firm has changed its management there, and that orders were up in the quarter. He also said that Fluidigm is encouraged by "continued stimulus spending in Japan, at least in parts directed into markets in which we are a primary participant."
"Another consistent theme supporting our growth in the second quarter was robust adoption and utilization of our products in production genomics," Worthington said. "We have been increasingly successful in applied markets, where customers value high reproducibility, streamlined workflows, and lower running costs. Our growing customer base in this area spans agricultural biotechnology, biorepository, and clinical laboratory settings."
Consumables pull-through for its analytical systems stayed within its historical range of $40,000 to $50,000 per instrument per year, Fluidigm said. Consumables pull-through for its preparatory systems was above its historical range of $10,000 to $15,000.
The firm's net loss for the quarter improved to $4.0 million, or $.16 per share, from a net loss of $4.6 million, or $.22 per share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, a net loss of $.07 per share was well above the consensus analyst estimate of a net loss of $.17 per share.
Fluidigm's R&D costs rose to $5.0 million, a 25 percent increase from $4.0 million a year ago. Its SG&A spending increased 23 percent year over year to $11.6 million from $9.4 million.
The company exited the second quarter with $32.3 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $28.1 million in short-term investments.
Fluidigm raised its anticipated full-year 2013 revenue growth to a range of between 27 and 31 percent, from an earlier range of 22 to 26 percent.
"Based on our strong performance in the first half of the year, the acceleration of our end markets, and visibility into the remaining half of 2013, we are increasing our full year revenue growth guidance to a range of 27 percent to 31 percent, above our previous range of 22 percent to 26 percent," said Worthington.
In Friday morning trade on the Nasdaq, shares of Fluidigm were up around 12 percent at $19.95.