NEXTMap® USA 63% collected
NEXTMap® Germany — first countrywide sale completed
Total revenues up 23%
Calgary, Alberta (TSX: IMP, AIM: IMAP): Intermap Technologies Corp. (“Intermap” or the “Company”), today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2008. A conference call will be held today at 11:00 am eastern time to discuss the results.
Financial Review
All amounts in this news release are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.
For the first quarter, Intermap™ reported a 23% increase in total revenue to $7.7 million, compared to $6.2 million in the first quarter of 2007. Intermap's contract services revenue component grew to $5.9 million and multi-client data licenses (MCDL) from NEXTMap® datasets contributed $1.8 million, compared to $1.1 million in the first quarter of 2007.
Approximately 45% of the MCDL revenue was associated with the Company's NEXTMap Europe program, 20% was associated with NEXTMap USA, 8% with NEXTMap® Britain, and 27% with the Company's Indonesia dataset. NEXTMap Europe revenues in the quarter were derived from the first countrywide sale of NEXTMap Europe's Germany data. Contract Services revenue in the quarter were driven primarily from mapping projects in Southeast Asia and from the continuation of a $12.5 million U.S. government contract announced during the third quarter of 2007 for an international project. Revenue recognized from this contract totaled $3.5 million in the quarter.
“Our biggest accomplishment during the first part of this year, and arguably in the Company's history, was finishing the aircraft data collection phase of approximately 2.2 million square kilometers of data for NEXTMap Europe,” said Brian Bullock, president & CEO of Intermap. “This is a significant milestone for Intermap. Once the processing phase of NEXTMap Europe is complete, the digital terrain models and digital surface models we're creating will have over 80 billion elevation measurements. Additionally, to support the growing European market, we're creating contours, 3D road vectors, and panchromatic and color orthorectified radar images. In addition to having collected 100% of NEXTMap Europe, we have already collected 63% of the U.S.”
Sales, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses for the first quarter were $7.2 million, compared to $5.3 million for the first quarter of 2007. The increase is primarily attributable to personnel increases in the areas of business development, sales, and marketing in support of our MCDL sales, and from the Company's automotive, GPS / PND (personal navigation device), and insurance risk assessment initiatives.
Amortization expense of the MCDL database increased to $1.5 million from $0.9 million in Q1 of 2007 primarily due to an increase in amortization associated with the NEXTMap USA and NEXTMap Europe datasets, which had approximately $8.9 million of additional costs capitalized to the asset during the first quarter. A significant portion of the increase in amortization expense related to the NEXTMap Europe dataset is a result of a countrywide sale of Germany data during the first quarter of 2008.
After interest income of $0.5 million, and a foreign exchange loss of $0.4 million, Intermap reported a net loss of $4.2 million, or ($0.09) per share in the first quarter, compared to a net loss of $2.8 million, or ($0.08) per share, in the first quarter of 2007.
Cash and cash equivalents at March 31, 2008 were $44.7 million, compared to $56.8 million at December 31, 2007. The Company's working capital was $55.3 million, compared to $65.0 million at December 31, 2007.
NEXTMap Europe
Data collection for NEXTMap Europe amounted to 793,000 km2 during the first quarter, and on April 11, 2008, Intermap completed the aircraft data collection phase of the program. Collected data includes approximately 2.2 million square kilometers across Europe, encompassing 18 Western European countries. The Company will make data available as it is processed. All of the NEXTMap Europe datasets are expected to be fully completed and commercially available by March 31, 2009. These datasets will be the most uniformly accurate 3D digital maps of Western Europe in existence.
NEXTMap USA
NEXTMap USA is the Company's largest program that includes terrain elevation and imagery data accurate to one-meter or better, covering nearly eight million square kilometers of the United States. In the first quarter, Intermap collected a total of 283,000 square kilometers of data for the program. The total collected since the inception of the program is 5.1 million square kilometers, or 63% of the contiguous 48 states and Hawaii. The Company expects to have the NEXTMap USA program completed by the end of the fourth quarter of 2009.
GPS / PND Devices
In the third quarter of 2007, Intermap announced AccuTerra™, a product that provides existing outdoor GPS and personal navigation device (PND) products with detailed maps, land coverage, digital terrain data, and off-road points-of-interest (POI). The Company has no plans to build a PND or GPS device; rather it will offer AccuTerra recreational content under license to manufacturers of these devices.
Intermap has entered into relationships with two GPS navigation OEMs, announcing in February 2008 an agreement to offer Magellan customers access to Intermap's AccuTerra recreational content for two lines of Magellan GPS devices. AccuTerra will be available for purchase directly from the Magellan Web site. “Our customers can now transform their recreational experience with the most feature-rich map data available on the market today — all in one powerful device,” said Christian Bubenheim, vice president of product marketing for Magellan. Intermap has also announced a similar relationship with Bushnell Outdoor Products. Bushnell users will be able to access Intermap's AccuTerra recreational map data for the contiguous 48 states and Hawaii.
Intermap is developing a 3D version of AccuTerra to allow users to visualize trails and other features in three dimensions. “We are excited about our new GPS relationships and optimistic about the increasing interest in our data,” said Mr. Bullock. “Market interest in AccuTerra has grown rapidly and Intermap is in discussions with other GPS and PND manufacturers that are active or looking to enter the recreation segment. We believe the evolution of GPS and PNDs to 3D will improve the user experience for off-road enthusiasts, hikers, hunters, fisherman, skiers, and mountaineers. We're seeing a rapid increase in 3D visualization development that is driving consumer awareness and market adoption.”
Insurance Risk Management
Intermap is developing flood risk models in European countries following the success of flood modeling applications pioneered in Great Britain. The Company has partnered with SwissRe for use of their flood modeling algorithms and for quality assurance support for all of Europe.
Insurance companies can use NEXTMap's superior insurance risk information to better define possible risks. The result can be more effective portfolio management and a net reduction of annual costs through a reduced need for reinsurance coverage and lower payouts after flood events. Intermap is also in discussions with U.S. insurers for commercial insurance applications.
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)
To enable automotive safety applications, Intermap is creating road centerlines for all classes of roads in the U.S. and Europe. The Company has demonstrator agreements with several industry partners in support of emerging Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications using Intermap's 3D road vectors derived from its NEXTMap database. Accurate road vectors enable an automobile's electronic system to anticipate the road ahead, providing an input to visualization, performance, and other advanced driver assistance applications.
A significant amount of the fuel expense in the heavy trucking industry is attributed to changes in road slope. The Company's 3D road vector data is enabling the design of systems to manage optimal vehicle speed and gear selection designed to improve fuel economy and reduce operating costs.
Detailed financial results for the quarter and management's discussion and analysis can be found on SEDAR at: www.sedar.com.
A pdf copy of this release, along with financial details, is available by clicking here.
Annual Meeting Reminder
Intermap extends an invitation to shareholders and members of the investment community to attend its Annual Meeting on May 13, 2008, at 11:00 a.m. MDT, in the Westwinds Conference Room (Second Floor) #1200, 555 - 4th Avenue S.W., in Calgary, Alberta.. An electronic version of the Company's 2007 annual filings can be found on www.sedar.com.
Conference Call May 9, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. EDT (8:00 a.m. MDT)
Intermap will host a conference call on May 9, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT, 3 p.m. GMT). To participate in the call, please dial 416-695-5259 or 1-800-952-6845 approximately 10 minutes prior to the conference call. A recording of the conference call will be available through May 16, 2008. Please dial 416-695-5800 or 1-800-408-3053 and provide the password 3261072 to listen to the rebroadcast.
About Intermap Technologies
Intermap (TSX: IMP.TO, AIM: IMAP.L) is a preeminent digital mapping company creating uniform high-resolution 3D digital models of the earth's surface. The Company is proactively remapping entire countries and building uniform national databases, called NEXTMap®, consisting of affordably priced elevation data and geometric images of unprecedented accuracy. Demand for NEXTMap data is growing as new commercial applications emerge within the GIS, engineering, automotive, personal navigation device, insurance risk assessment, oil and gas, hydrology, environmental planning, wireless communications, transportation, aviation and 3D visualization markets.
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Intermap employs more than 670 people worldwide, with additional offices in Calgary, Detroit, Jakarta, London, Munich, Ottawa, Prague, and Washington D.C. For more information, visit www.Intermap.com.
NEXTMap® is a registered trademark of Intermap Technologies Corporation
For more information, please contact:
Intermap Technologies
Richard Mohr, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
(303) 708-0955
Canada — Financial
Corbet Pala, Investor Relations
E-vestor Communications Inc.
(416) 657-2400
United States — Financial
Budd Zuckerman, Investor Relations
Genesis Select Corporation
(303) 415-0200
United Kingdom — AIM, Nominated Advisor
Canaccord Adams Limited
Andrew Chubb
+44 (0) 207 050 6500
Intermap Reader Advisory
Certain information provided in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate", "expect", "project", "estimate", "forecast" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Although Intermap believes that these statements are based on information and assumptions which are current, reasonable and complete, these statements are necessarily subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. You can find a discussion of such risks and uncertainties in our Annual Information Form and other securities filings. While the Company makes these forward-looking statements in good faith, should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expected. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits that the Company will derive therefrom. All subsequent forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, attributable to Intermap or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements made herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities law.