Syed Iftikar, founder and president of SyQuest Technology Inc, the pioneer of small form factor removable cartridge disk drives, told the conference that a 7% drop in the company’s first quarter revenues reflected an unexpected inventory backlog in Singapore, a loss of shipments after two customers went bankrupt and smaller than expected sales from a government contract. It had revenues of $47.3m in the first quarter to December 31, compared with $50.7m a year ago. SyQuest expects to ship a new version of its 3.5 drive in the next couple of months and expects the 3.5 drives to replace 5.25 drives as the major contributor to revenue growth. Iftikar also noted that the company will be moving the manufacture of its cartridges to Penang, Malaysia and that most of these products will be made there by the end of the current quarter, to reduce production costs. Michael Perez, senior vice-president, asked if he was comfortable with an analyst’s estimate that the company will earn $1.00 a share in the year ended September 30, 1994, told Reuters, that estimate suggests there won’t be growth this year and I don’t believe that.
