Buoyed by the big success of its DirectTV digital satellite television venture in the US, Thomson Multimedia SA reported Tuesday a net improvement in its financial results. Although the company had a net loss of some $119m, it quadrupled its pre-tax profit to about $121m on revenues of $7,630m, which had also increased 14% over 1993. When I arrived at this company three years ago, it had lost 7 billion [francs – $1,400m] between 1990 and 1992 and had a debt of 12 billion [$2,400m]. Today, with the re-establishment of our revenue base and our operating accounts, we have come back from a logic of catastrophe to one of performance, chief executive Alain Prestat told Les Echos. Prestat underlined that Thomson Multimedia’s financial improvement came without any state aid. As a result, the $200,000 or so of interest on its unchanged debt caused the net loss. Thomson Multimedia has, in fact, successfully conducted a commercial reconquest of the US consumer electronics market. According to Les Echos, the company, with its RCA, GE and Proscan brands, is number one in the US television set (with 20%) and video recorder markets. Its DirectTV venture with Hughes, which provides 140 channels from a simple antenna and decoder, has attracted nearly 1m US households. Thomson Multimedia is the only supplier of the receiver equipment and sold 600,000 decoders in six months, or twice as many as expected. It is expected to deliver 1.5m this year, despite the arrival of new competition from Sony Corp. For once, we are the ones in the lead and we possess the technology, Prestat said. Canal Plus has chosen Thomson Multimedia to direct a similar venture, although smaller, in Europe. It is also allied with Sun Microsystems Inc on interactive television equipment.
