MIDDLETOWN – In a string of announcements over the past week, KVH Industries Inc. said it had received a new $1 million order for navigation systems, dropped prices on its TracVision satellite TV for RVs, and introduced a new promotion on its TracVision V7.
On Wednesday, KVH said it had received a $1 million order for its CNS-5000 navigation system, less than a month after the firm got a $900,000 order for the same product.
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Dan Conway, KVH’s vice president of business development, called the two orders “evidence of the rapid acceptance of the CNS-5000 and the demand for a self-contained, commercial navigation solution.”
“The CNS-5000’s precision navigation and easy integration with a wide range of other systems make it an ideal solution for demanding commercial applications, such as dynamic surveying, precision agriculture, container terminal management and autonomous vehicle navigation,” he said.
The following day, KVH announced that it would offer double-digit discounts on its 12-inch TracVision digital satellite TV system, with bigger markdowns on its lower-cost models.
KVH pitched the discounts to RV owners. The company’s RV revenue dropped by more than 50 percent in the second half of last year as customers pulled back on spending.
“RV owners are focused on refitting their current coaches and getting outstanding value when choosing the accessories they’ll take along,” said Bob Cooper, KVH’s national sales manager for land mobile products.
The biggest price cut was on KVH’s R5SL model, which was reduced from $1,999 to $1,399. Discounts on the other three models were between $300 and $400.
Then on Monday, at the 2009 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, KVH unveiled a new promotion to boost sales of its TracPhone V7 product and accompanying mini-VSAT broadband service.
The company said it wants to convince vessel owners to “move down” from traditional big-dish VSAT systems to KVH’s smaller TracPhone V7 hardware and the mini-VSAT service that goes with it.
The company is offering mariners three months of free airtime and either 40 percent off hardware costs when purchasing outright or a 10 percent airtime discount and roughly 30 percent off the monthly hardware charge if they choose the company’s lease option.
The announcements came a week after KVH posted a first-quarter loss of $2.6 million as revenue fell 21 percent to $18.3 million compared with the previous year.
