Socket Mobile (NASDAQ: SCKT) reported Q4 EPS of ($0.03), versus $0.00 reported last year. Revenue for the quarter came in at $4.1 million versus the consensus estimate of $4.19 million.

Comments from our Chief Executive Officer:

Kevin Mills, president and chief executive officer, commented, \"Our revenue and bottom line were impacted during 2018 by a combination of factors that are now behind us. We released new SocketScan barcode scanner products in April 2018, some four months behind the original schedule, which impacted sales throughout 2018 while customers evaluated the new products and reduced their purchases of the old. Our corporate deployments slowed by nearly $2 million in 2018 compared to 2017. For most of 2018, we were shipping both our older family of products and our new SocketScan series to allow for a smooth transition. We discontinued our older products in late 2018 and now the transition is completed.

"We look forward to a return to the profitable growth that has been our history from 2014 through 2017. Our updated SocketScan and DuraScan family of products are fully compatible with all applications that use our products, have an expected useful life of at least three to five years, and are being well received. We've upgraded our application developer tools to meet the needs of a growing developer community. Applications incorporating our barcode scanning products are growing in key mobile areas including commercial services and retail point of sale. Our product portfolio includes new capabilities including an Apple iPhone DuraCase for one-handed barcode scanning nearing release this quarter, passport readers to read and capture passport numbers, and for our developers, a token exchanger using the Near Field Communications technology available in many smartphones.

"In 2018, we introduced to our Developer Community our new and improved Capture software developer kit (SDK). Our Capture SDK has been re-engineered to better serve the fast-moving mobile development environment. Today, we have over 1,000 companies that are registered members of our Developer Community, many of whom have more than one developer associated with their application development efforts. Retail point of sale applications for the underserved small business community continue to be our largest application category and the primary driver of our barcode scanner sales. Retail point of sale is also benefiting from new opportunities within the retail environment such as are being created by the growing cannabis industry. Cannabis sales and products are highly regulated and require track and trace records which are ideally suited to barcode scanning. We are also seeing a lot of development work in the commercial services market which will contribute to our sales going forward.

"Throughout 2018 we maintained an active product development program. We\'ve delivered passport readers that support Optical Character Recognition requirements in both rugged form factor products (model D760) and attachable form factor products (S860). We are releasing this quarter a version of our DuraCase that supports Apple iPhone Models 6, 7 and 8 for one-handed barcode scanning. We have announced to our Developer Community the S500 for electronic token exchange with a simple tap from Apple or other Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled smartphones. Electronic tokens are used in loyalty programs, for personal identification and for payments. We expect to ship this product in Q3, 2019 as applications become available.

"With the completion of our SocketScan product and Capture SDK transitions, events that slowed our momentum in 2018, we look forward in 2019 to enhancing our worldwide leadership position in mobile companion data capture solutions," Mills concluded.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Socket Mobile (SCKT) click here.