NextMart Reports Financial Results for the Transition Period Ended September 30, 2007
January 15 2008 - 6:27PM
PR Newswire (US)
BEIJING, Jan. 15 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NextMart, Inc.
(OTC:NXMR) (BULLETIN BOARD: NXMR) , a Chinese direct sales company,
today reported its audited financial results for the six-month
period ended September 30, 2007. This period was a transition
period for the company as a result of its recent change of fiscal
year end from March 31 to September 30. For the six-month
transition period ended September 30, 2007, NextMart reported gross
revenue of US$3,525,506, of which US$3,482,646 or 98.8% was
generated by the Company's transactional services and US$42,860 or
1.2% was generated by the Company's marketing and information
services. The Company's gross profit for the six-month period was
US$814,461 and its operating loss was US$33,946,726. After other
one-time losses for the transition period ended September 30, 2007,
the Company reported a net loss after-tax of US$33,751,124 or
US$0.39 per outstanding share. After currency exchange adjustments
and minority interests, the Company reported a comprehensive loss
of US$33,864,099 or US$0.39 per outstanding share. For more
detailed information on the Company's results of operations, please
refer to the Company's Form 10-KSB filing, which includes its
audited financial statements, for the transition period ended
September 30, 2007 which has been filed today, and can be found at
http://www.sec.gov/ . Mr. Ren Huiliang, Chief Executive Officer of
NextMart, Inc. commented, "We experienced a loss for the transition
period ended September 30 2007 due largely to certain one-time
adjustments of non-performing assets and goodwill relating to
acquisitions in the fiscal years ended March 31, 2006 and 2007. Now
that we have settled our historical issues related to previous
acquisitions of the Company, we believe we are well positioned for
strong growth in 2008. We maintain a profitable women's apparel
business based in Shanghai and are leveraging its capabilities
among other assets of the Company to develop our direct sales
operations." NextMart's Enhanced Direct Sales Strategy for Fiscal
2008 In 2008, NextMart's business strategy will be to enhance its
focus on developing an integrated online-offline direct sales
platform for its women's apparel business. The key initiatives of
this direct sales strategy include: (1) Expanding the company's
sales channels to include offline mail-order catalogues and
TV-shopping; (2) Launching sales of the Company's private label
apparel brand Peeress; and (3) Partnering with offline shopping
malls in China to create online shopping sites that will carry
numerous leading domestic/global fashion brands. NextMart's
rationale for pursuing an integrated direct sales strategy is
two-fold. First, the Company can achieve higher profit margins by
selling women's apparel directly to consumers rather than selling
through high cost, inefficient third-party distribution channels.
Second, NextMart already has the operational assets and marketing
partnerships necessary to realize its direct sales vision. The
Company has mature apparel design and production management
operations, with a database of several thousand women's clothing
designs. The company has has a strategic marketing and sales
partnership with Her Village, China's leading multimedia women's
community with over 40 million E-Magazine downloads and web visits,
which includes 10 million unique visitors, per month. It also has a
sales partnership with Shanghai Guifuren Garment, a well-known
women's apparel chain with 49 retail points in China. NextMart
plans to execute its direct sales strategy by reorganizing its
operations into the following three enhanced business units: (1)
Integrated Direct Sales. This division will focus on selling
women's apparel to urban female consumers through three online and
offline direct sales channels: (a) Digital
E-catalogues/E-Magazines; (b) Print Mail-Order Catalogues; and (c)
TV shopping programs. For (a) Digital E-catalogues/E-Magazines, the
company will leverage its existing marketing and sales partnership
with Her Village. This marketing/sales partnership gives NextMart
marketing space within Her Village's e-magazine properties in
exchange for a 10% commission on sales paid to Her Village. In
addition to selling product through Her Village's media products,
NextMart is developing its own NextMart E-Shopping Catalogues to
sell apparel to Her Village's online consumer community. For (b)
Print Mail-Order Catalogues and (c) TV-Shopping, the Company
intends to partner with leading mail-order catalogue and
TV-shopping partners in Mainland China. The Company is currently in
discussions with partners for strategic partnership or acquisition.
Strategic partnerships would entail NextMart providing low-cost
women's wear to its partners in exchange for ongoing marketing and
sales access to Chinese female customers. The parties would split
revenue according to a pre-negotiated rate. (2) Private Labels.
This division will leverage the Company's existing apparel design
and production capabilities to launch private labels for sale in
China and abroad. The Company's first brand, Peeress, targets
mature professional women inChina's leading cities. Peeress already
has several thousand women's apparel designs, which include
dresses, business suits, evening wear and lingerie. The Company has
already begun to sell its Peeress clothing domestically and abroad
through limited channels and plans to expand these sales
considerably in 2008. Internationally, the Company will work with
its existing partners and clients of its wholesale operations to
sell Peeress product in retail chains such as Sears. Domestically,
the Company will sell Peeress product through its direct sales
channels (see above) and two leading Chinese retail chains -
Shanghai Guifuren Garment Co., a leading women's apparel chain with
49 stores in Mainland China, and Shanghai 1st Department stores,
one of China's leading department store chains. Both partnerships
have already been secured. (3) E-Commerce Partnerships. This
division plans to partner with leading offline shopping malls to
create e-commerce sites that sell women's clothing of several
well-known domestic and international fashion brands. The division
will provide e-commerce and technical services in exchange for a
commission on e-commerce sales. The division will focus mainly on
large-scale projects in order to best utilize its resources and
capture scalable business opportunities. About NextMart, Inc.
NextMart is a China-based women's apparel enterprise that aims to
develop China's largest shopping community for wholesale
distribution and retail shopping, primarily in the areas of women's
fashion and apparel. The Company has core business operations in
apparel fashion design, production, sourcing and wholesale
distribution in China and internationally. It has supporting
operations in electronic parts and components distribution. Since
April 2007, NextMart has centered its operations around William's
Brand, its Shanghai- based apparel subsidiary. The Company has
focused its efforts on expanding its business client base for
outsourced wholesale production. The Company also has launched
initiatives to create its own private label brands to sell women's
apparel to urban consumers nationwide, using an integrated
offline/online direct sales model. Learn more at
http://corporate.nextmart.net/ . This press release includes
statements that may constitute 'forward- looking' statements,
usually containing the word 'believe,' 'estimate,' 'project,'
'expect,' 'plan,' 'anticipate' or similar expressions. Forward-
looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results to differ materially from the
forward-looking statements. Factors that would cause or contribute
to such differences include, but are not limited to, continued
acceptance ofNextMart's product and services in the marketplace,
competitive factors and changes in regulatory environments. These
and other risks relating to NextMart's business are set forth in
NextMart's Annual Report on Form 10-KSB for the period ended March
31, 2007 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July
16, 2007, and other reports filed from time to time with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. By making these forward-looking
statements, NextMart disclaims any obligation to update these
statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.
For more information, please contact: Phoebe Wang Tel:
+86-10-85189669 DATASOURCE: NextMart, Inc. CONTACT: Phoebe Wang for
NextMart, Inc., +86-10-85189669 Web site:
http://corporate.nextmart.net/
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