Kopin Losses Mount as Wearables Market Shifts

Completing a year in which it worked to reinvent itself, microdisplays firm Kopin Corp. reported a net loss of 28.2 million in 2014, compared to a net loss of $4.7 million the year before.

Full-year revenues, however, were $31.8 million, up 39 percent from $22.9 million in 2013. R&D expenses grew by 18 percent to $20.7 million.

The company’s focus had been on wearable technologies for the military, but during the year it added marketing and business development personnel and began ramping up products for other applications.

“The wearable industry seems to have shifted more towards enterprise applications,” said CEO Dr. John Fan. “At Kopin we have always believed that enterprise applications are the logical initial entry point for smart headsets, and we have focused our Golden-i headsets for enterprise applications over the past five years.”

Fan said two tier-one customers will introduce products featuring Kopin components this year.

“We believe that for consumer applications, the device must be different from that of enterprise applications,” Fan continued. “Along with developing smaller, more efficient optical engines, we have placed significant emphasis on voice, which we believe will become the new touch.”

Kopin develops wearable technologies and components for head-worn computing and display systems, including ultrasmall displays, optics, speech enhancement technology, system and hands-free control software, low-power aplication-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and ergonomically designed smart headset reference systems.

For more information, visit www.kopin.com.