Shareholder Scoreboard --- Which Companies Stood Out For Better or Worse --- Best 3-Year Performer: Glenayre Technologies Inc.
AuthorAffiliation Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal</br></br>The company's niche is paging equipment, and the infrastructure needed to support it. Back in 1993, "competitors were starting to consider paging out of date, and thought it might become obsolete as newer wireless technologies emerged," says Lior Bregman, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. But things turned out different. "While everyone else was ignoring paging's potential, the industry continued to grow 20% to 30% annually," Mr. Bregman says.</br></br>The company's single-minded focus has paid off in a fat market share. In the U.S. market for paging switches and transmitters, it has about 80% and 65% shares, respectively. Motorola Inc. is in second place.</br></br>As Glenayre moved into paging, the company shed all its businesses outside the telecommunications industry. The strategic shift paid off immediately, boosting Glenayre's sales to $136.1 million in 1993 from just $15.6 million the prior year.</br></br>As pagers have gotten cheaper and more advanced, they have become more mainstream -- appearing on the belts of money managers and in the backpacks of teenagers, as opposed to just doctors' lapels and drug dealers' pockets. And the paging market has taken off internationally as well, with new countries and overseas operators continually being added to Glenayre's customer list.