Mobile communications provider @Track Communications, Richardson, Texas, reported declining losses in their first-quarter results.

The numbers come at a critical time for @Track, which was threatened with delisting from the Nasdaq exchange in December. The company found financial help in a European counterpart, Minorplanet Systems PLC of Leeds, England, and its stock remains listed on Nasdaq, though on a provisional basis. @Track stock, which has traded above $20 a share, was trading at less than 50 cents on Thursday.
@Track is best known for systems such as the HighwayMaster Series 5000 and TrackWare trailer tracking. The company recently introduced a low-cost fleet monitoring system called 20/20V.
@Track revenues for the quarter ended March 31 were $22.4 million, compared with $16.3 million for the same period in 2000. The reported net loss of $5.6 million compared with a net loss of $9.7 million for the first quarter of 2000.
Product revenues grew to $7.6 million from $1.1 million for the same period a year ago, an increase largely attributable to installations for member companies of SBC Communications, a former "Baby Bell" and the nation’s second largest regional telephone company after Verizon. Product revenues are from equipment, such as the mobile units installed in trucks or on trailers.
@Track’s service revenues for the first quarter 2001 were $12.4 million, compared with $12.2 million for the first quarter of 2000. These revenues derived from ongoing service to companies operating @Track equipment.
That installed base on March 31 was 68,415 mobile units, compared with 49,514 at March 31, 2000.
@Track has had a long and rocky history in a relatively new industry. The company was incorporated as HighwayMaster when it entered the mobile communications business in 1992 looking primarily to the long-haul truckload market.
Against such satellite-based competitors as Qualcomm and American Mobile Satellite (which has since evolved into Aether Systems), the company developed and deployed a lower-cost, ground-based mobile communications system.
But red ink flowed at HighwayMaster until about this time three years ago, when the company reported a quarterly loss of $11.6 million on revenues of $15.7 million.
In the ensuing shakeup, former operations vice president for AT&T Wireless, Jana Bell, took over as president and CEO. Among other changes, HighwayMaster took a 10 percent staff cut and moved to its current headquarters from Dallas.
In 1999, HighwayMaster introduced the quick-install trailer tracking product called TrackWare and in 2000 changed its name to @Track.
Most recently, @Track introduced 20/20V, a low-cost wireless system to track and monitor trucks without driver input.