macroeconomic conditions); (5) the uncertainties and logistical challenges that accompany operations on a global scale; and (6) terrorism or acts of war, or the threat thereof, or political or labor instability or unrest, civil unrest, riots or insurrections, public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic (or other future pandemics or epidemics), including the severity and transmission rates of new variants, which could adversely affect customer confidence and spending or interrupt production and distribution of product and raw materials.
Inventory levels in excess of customer demand may result in inventory write-downs or write-offs, and the sale of excess inventory at discounted prices, which could harm our gross margin. In addition, if we underestimate the demand for our products, we may not be able to produce products to meet our customer requirements, and this could result in delays in the shipment of our products, therefore impacting our ability to recognize revenue, generate lost sales, and cause damage to our reputation and relationships with our customers. Inaccurate forecasts may also adversely impact our ability to prepare forward-looking statements and meet investor expectations.
Challenges in forecasting demand can also make it difficult to estimate future results of operations and financial condition from period to period. A failure to accurately predict the level of demand for our products or manage product inventory in an effective and efficient manner could adversely impact our results of operations and cause us not to achieve our expected financial results.
We operate in an intensely competitive marketplace, and our competitors have greater resources than we do.
In the market for our disk sputtering systems, we experience competition primarily from Canon Anelva, which has sold a substantial number of systems worldwide. Some of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, marketing, manufacturing and other resources than we do, especially in the DCP equipment market. Our competitors may develop enhancements to, or future generations of, competitive products that offer superior price or performance features, and new competitors may enter our markets and develop such enhanced products. Moreover, competition for our customers is intense, and our competitors have historically offered substantial pricing concessions and incentives to attract our customers or retain their existing customers.
We are exposed to risks associated with a highly concentrated customer base.
Historically, a significant portion of our revenue in any particular period has been attributable to sales of our disk sputtering systems to a limited number of customers. Our reliance on sales to relatively few customers has increased with the disposition of our Photonics business, and we expect that sales of our products to relatively few customers will continue to account for a high percentage of our revenues in the foreseeable future, particularly as we realign our operations to focus on the HDD and DCP markets. This concentration of customers, when combined with changes in the customers’ specific capacity plans and market share shifts can lead to extreme variability in our revenue and financial results from period to period.
The concentration of our customer base may enable our customers to demand pricing and other terms unfavorable to Intevac and makes us more vulnerable to changes in demand by or issues with a given customer. Orders from a relatively limited number of manufacturers have accounted for, and will likely continue to account for, a substantial portion of our revenues. The loss of one of these large customers, or delays in purchasing by them, would have a material and adverse effect on our revenues.
Our operating results fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter, which can lead to volatility in the price of our common stock.
Our quarterly revenues and common stock price have fluctuated significantly. We anticipate that our revenues, operating margins and common stock price will continue to fluctuate for a variety of reasons, including: (1) changes in the demand, due to seasonality, cyclicality and other factors in the markets for computer systems, storage subsystems and consumer electronics containing disks as well as cell phones our customers produce with our systems; (2) delays or problems in the introduction and acceptance of our new products, or delivery of existing products; (3) timing of orders, acceptance of new systems by our customers or cancellation or delay of those orders; (4) new products, services or technological innovations by our competitors or us; (5) changes in our manufacturing costs and operating expense; (6) changes in general economic, political, stock market and industry conditions; and (7) any failure of our operating results to meet the expectations of investment research analysts or investors.
Any of these, or other factors, could lead to volatility and/or a rapid change in the trading price of our common shares. In the past, securities class action litigation has been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the market price of their securities. Any such litigation, if instituted against Intevac, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management time and attention.
Our success depends on international sales and the management of global operations.
In previous years, the majority of our revenues have come from regions outside the United States. Most of our international sales are to customers in Asia, which includes products shipped to overseas operations of U.S. companies. We currently have manufacturing facilities in California and Singapore and international customer support offices in Singapore, China, and Malaysia. We expect that international sales will continue to account for a significant portion of our total revenue in future years. Certain of our suppliers are also located outside the United States.
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