Thanks, Laura. I'd like to welcome everyone to our 2015 third quarter conference call. While Hugh will review the financial results in detail, I'll review some of the highlights, and we'll then discuss our markets and what we are seeing in our customer base.
Before we review our results for the third quarter, I'd like to take a moment to discuss two very important announcements made today. First, we announced a couple of changes to our executive staff. Dan Graham, Senior Vice President and General Manager of our Mechanical and Electrical Products segments, has informed the board of his decision to retire at the end of 2015. I want to personally thank Dan for his many years of distinguished service. As one of the cofounders of inTEST, he has played an instrumental role in developing our technologies, and I wish him all the best as he embarks on the next chapter of his life.
Secondly, James Pelrin has been promoted to the position of Executive Vice President. Many of you know Jim and know the outstanding work he has done as Vice President and GM of our Thermal Products segment, our largest, most profitable and diversified division, which is providing inTEST with the growth opportunities in the future. Through the strategic diversification of this segment, we are creating new opportunities in industrial testing and broadening our end-market penetration to electronics test applications in various growth markets, including automotive, consumer electronics, defense/aerospace, energy, industrial, and telecommunications. Jim has overseen all aspects of that business, including sales, product management, engineering and operations and, in his expanded role, will have responsibility for all of our business segments. I look forward to working with Jim on implementing our long-term objective to grow and evolve inTEST Corporation into a broad-based industrial test company as we continue to execute our differentiated product strategy.
I'd also like to talk about our capital allocation priorities. It is always the goal of inTEST to allocate capital to our best opportunities for profitable growth. And to this end, we have identified three main priorities -- first, maintaining sufficient working capital for our growing business; second, M&A that is inorganic growth opportunities; and third, share repurchases, which we have announced today.
Our top strategic initiatives include the growth of our annual revenues and the further diversification into other markets through our Thermal Products segment to mitigate the cyclical and seasonal demand levels inherent in the semiconductor capital equipment industry. As we have discussed, in order to achieve these goals, we will need to acquire another business with revenues in the $15 million to $25 million range to augment the organic growth of revenues we currently anticipate in our existing businesses.
We have a strong track record of integrating businesses that expand either our market share or offerings, and our current M&A search is highly focused on providing us the means to meet these goals. We constantly review all transactions that would create shareholder value. Because of the relatively small galaxy of purely thermal-related businesses that fit our financial capabilities, over the year, we have widened our search parameters considerably. We are mainly interested in processes, things like test and assembly, and/or products that would be components and systems that incorporate electrical, mechanical and/or thermal elements, either singularly or in some combination.
Our initial interest was primarily thermal, but this is proven to be highly restrictive, thus, our widening of search parameters. From a financial perspective, we are looking for a target that is profitable, that has no turnaround story, immediately accretive, with revenues in the $15 million to $25 million range and valued at a reasonable multiple of EBITDA. We will continue to leverage our considerable financial flexibility if suitable inorganic growth opportunities arise.
Finally, earlier this afternoon, we announced that our board had authorized the company's first share repurchase program of $5 million, demonstrating our commitment to creating and returning value to our stockholders. We remain committed to our goal of diversified growth through acquisition, and we'll continue our search for opportunities.
Now let's take a look at the results. While the third quarter reflected normal seasonality that we experienced this time of year, along with an industry-wide pause, net revenue and net earnings were within guidance, and we delivered our 24th consecutive quarter of profitability. During the third quarter, results improved in several markets we serve outside of the ATE market, including telecom and the industrial markets.
Now for a more detailed look at the segments. Thermal segment bookings for the third quarter were $5.6 million compared with second quarter bookings of $6.1 million. Third quarter Thermal segment revenues were $6.3 million compared with second quarter Thermal segment revenues of $6.7 million.
At SEMICON West in July, inTEST Thermal Systems, or ITS, launched two Temptronic families of thermal products, which were well received. First was the ECO Series of quiet ThermoStreams designed for the laboratory environment, where audible noise and heat dissipation are of great concern. Product shipment commenced in September. Second were the ThermoSpot benchtop systems for temperature-testing integrated circuits, including high-watt-emitting devices, creating a highly efficient thermal conductive path to quickly induce temperatures to the device under test even while powered. We are presently addressing inquiries from several companies for these products.
Sigma Systems had strong bookings with significant orders from several customers from the industrial sensor market and defense, along with a large increase in thermal platform bookings used both in the mil/aero market and commercial communications market. An order was received from a significant customer for inTEST Thermal to design and develop a next-generation thermal chamber for use in production. The order was for the first article and includes new features to better integrate the chambers into the manufacturing process and chamber diagnostics to maximize production and minimize downtime.
An order was received for a Thermonics chiller from an OEM to be used in their line of strip test handlers, replacing a competitive product. The chiller has been accepted by the OEM, shipped to the end user and accepted there. And ThermoStream sales into a leading domestic handheld device company continue to develop, with sales of about $167,000 during the quarter.
Turning to the Mechanical Products segment. Third quarter Mechanical Product bookings were $1.3 million compared with second quarter product bookings of $1.9 million. Mechanical sales for the third quarter were $1.3 million compared with $2.5 million in the second quarter. The reduction in bookings is largely attributable to a slowdown by all three of our largest customers this year. In fact, our largest customers had a capital freeze this year, although they do continue to make some necessary purchases.
A large company long known for creating hardware and software tools for engineers has entered the semiconductor production tester business, and we installed our first Cobal 250 for this new tester in Asia during Q2. We have subsequently installed manipulators and docking in two more companies for this new tester during Q3.
We continue to concentrate on ways to lower our production cost, particularly for the manipulator products. Also, we continue to market our IntelliDOCK to the industry and received evaluation orders from two major customers for use on the Teradyne UltraFLEX tester. These will ship in Q4.
We are developing a new manipulator in the 400-kilogram class, which will have optimized capability to handle variable loads, such as when docking plates are attached or removed during the operational day. Based on the seasonality of the past few years, we do not expect significant business improvement during Q4; however, several of our customers have just recently asked for quotes after a hiatus of more than a year.
Now let's take a look at the Electrical segment. The third quarter bookings were $1.4 million compared with Q2 bookings of $2.3 million. Third quarter Electrical revenues were $1.7 million compared with Q2 revenues of $2.4 million. Revenues were 5 % below forecast due mostly to the timing of the orders. It bears noting as always that the sales cycle in the Electrical division is a lengthy one, upwards to 1.5 years, and we're seeing the benefit of considerable effort and infrastructure we've put in place a few years ago. Some of those products continue to ship, and we would expect to see continued improvements in Electrical upon the industry's return to a more favorable environment.
There are several highlights for this group during the quarter. We exhibited at SEMICON Taiwan in Taipei during this September our inFLEX wafer probe interfaces, where a major family of testers continue to sell well. We are working closely with in developing interfaces for a new family of testers from a significant newcomer to the semiconductor production test business. We delivered a new piece of metrology equipment to place a probe card under the mechanical loads encountered in an actual prober while testing wafers. We delivered a proof-of-concept piece of this hardware to a major automotive parts supplier for the development of a specialized, very high frequency interface to be used in the testing of radar devices at probe. Test results were excellent, and we are moving forward to complete the design.
So let me summarize. Before I turn the call over to Hugh, let me wrap up. Our long-term objective is to grow and transform inTEST into a broad-based thermal test solutions company while continuing to supply our valued customers in the semiconductor test arena. Leveraging the strength of our semiconductor business, we have increased our footprint within with the evolution of our non-semi thermal test solutions. And we offer comprehensive product portfolio capable addressing growth markets in both the semi and non-semi sectors, including automotive, consumer electronics, defense/aerospace, energy, industrial, and telecommunications. It is our goal to be a recognized authority on extreme temperature environments and provide highly engineered application-specific thermal solutions with timely delivery and superior quality and reliability and believe the conditions for our long-term success remain firmly in place.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Hugh to discuss our third quarter results in detail.
