The ICCC's Arvind Chhatbar. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

Optical products maker Enablence Technologies Inc. saw sales shoot up in its fiscal 2008 year, as the company's recent shopping sprees spurred growth, but losses also mounted as a result of the acquisitions.

The Ottawa-based company said full-year revenues grew to $3.2 million from just $71,750 a year earlier, as Enablence had only begun generating sales in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2007 year. Most of the growth was seen in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, in which the company had revenues of $2.4 million.

"Industry partners continue to recognize the significance of planar lightwave circuit technology solutions. PLC-based solutions are becoming pervasive throughout all optical networks, and are beginning to displace bulk optics across these networks," said Enablence CEO Arvind Chhatbar in a statement. "Our goal is to lead this charge by providing optical network solutions that will position our customers to profit from the growing bandwidth demand that will require solutions that Enablence delivers."

Part of the increased sales were attributed to Enablence's three recent acquisitions of networking products company Wave7 Optics in May, optical wafer manufacturer ANDevices Inc. in February and its March 2008 purchase of Swiss photodiode maker Albis Optoelectronics, all of which have allowed the company to ramp up production and have added to its product portfolio. In fact, photodiode and detector sales through Enablence's Zurich facility accounted for all of its fourth-quarter revenues.

The company also announced earlier this month, following the end of the fiscal year, that it was buying technology from DuPont's photonics business for about $9.5 million.

However, the purchases also added to Enablence's losses, which grew to $11.3 million from $7.5 million, although per-share losses actually fell by a penny to eight cents because of the dilution from the purchase deals.

For the fourth quarter alone, Enablence's net loss was $5.2 million or three cents per share, compared to a loss of $2.2 million or two cents per share a year earlier.

The company noted that it expects to incur further significant operating losses in fiscal 2009 until it achieves volume sales.

At 12:27 p.m. on the TSX Venture Exchange, Enablence's stock was up two cents to $1.15.