By: Dylan Sikes - AllPennyStocks.com News

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Vending machines today are a far cry from what they were decades ago, as technology is redefining the trillion-dollar industry. Fastenal (NASDAQ:FAST) has now installed more than 50,000 of its industrial vending machines to dispense high-demand shop consumables in industrial facilities. Jet Blue (NASDAQ:JBLU) and partners in July kicked-off a program that dispenses free books for children between the ages of 0-14. The University of Michigan is even using a Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) activated vending machine that uses tweets instead of money to dispense products. U-Vend, Inc. (OTCQB:UVND) is a consumer products and automated retailing company specializing in unique ice cream and related products that are distributed through next-generation vending machines. In Canada, the company this month inked a deal with Micro Canada to launch an automated retail platform that will utilize U-Vend’s electronic kiosks to sell and dispense brand name cell phones and accessories. The phones are sold without a SIM card or contract, meaning consumers can activate the devices at their carrier of choice.

U-Vend has agreements with numerous national consumer product companies such as Mini Melts USA, Del Monte and Arthur’s Smoothies, to market and deliver products in an automated setting. The Santa Monica, California-based company has integrated LCD monitors, Wi-Fi, shock sensors, etc. into its kiosk program, providing a digital marketing component and high tech look for its machines, as well as leveraging machine-to-machine technologies for simplified management. In airports and malls, U-Vend has bundled several of its machines into an island, partnering with others in co-branded marketing efforts.

The upstart has made some notable strides in its business model and branding, including partnering with the National Hockey League as the “Official Ice Cream of the NHL,” a pact that provides for U-Vend to use NHL team branded marks on U-Vend’s “Puck Premium Ice Cream.” U-Vend has also partnered with the Anaheim Ducks RINKS program, which means U-Vend machines will be going in all seven of the RINKS locations in Southern California.

On Wednesday, investors got a sampling of how the company is performing with the release of results from the second quarter ended June 30. Second quarter revenues increased by $162,445, or 360 percent, to a record $224,463 for the quarter, as compared to revenues of $62,008 for the quarter ended June 30, 2014. Q2 sales experienced a nice rise from the first quarter of 2015, when sales totaled $124,700.

Gross profits for the latest quarter were $89,742, an increase of $61,705, or 320 percent, as compared to gross profit of $28,037 for the year prior quarter. Gross profits for the first half of 2015 were $133,943, up 321 percent from $41,655 in the year prior period.

U-Vend is still operating in the red, but expanded sales and better efficiency helped to cut the net loss in Q2 to $321,893, or 2 cents per share, from $575,114, or 7 cents per share, in Q2 2014. For the first six months of the year, net loss equaled $812,725, or 7 cents per share, versus $1.17 million, or 15 cents per share in the first six months of last year.

"Although we are very pleased with the revenue traction we've experienced in the first half of 2015, I am even more excited about the foundation and relationships we are building for U-Vend's future," stated Raymond Meyers, CEO of U-Vend, in a statement today. "We continue to evaluate new product offerings, strengthen our existing product offerings, expand our distribution network, and explore potential synergistic M&A opportunities," added Meyers.

Shares of UVND have been as low as 10 cents and as high as 45 cents so far in 2015. After closing at 17 cents on Tuesday, shares have edged up by a penny to 18 cents (+9.02%) in early trading action on Wednesday.

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