SEGMENT REPORTING INFORMATION

6 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2011

SEGMENT REPORTING INFORMATION [Abstract]

SEGMENT REPORTING INFORMATION

NOTE 14.  SEGMENT REPORTING INFORMATION

Operating segments are defined as components of an enterprise about which separate financial information is available that is evaluated regularly by our chief operating decision maker, or decision making group, in deciding how to allocate resources and in assessing performance.

Abaxis develops, manufactures, markets and sells portable blood analysis systems for use in the human or veterinary patient-care setting to provide clinicians with rapid blood constituent measurements.  We identify our reportable segments as those customer groups that represent more than 10% of our combined revenue or gross profit or loss of all reported operating segments.  We manage our business on the basis of the following two reportable segments:  (i) the medical market and (ii) the veterinary market, which are based on the products sold by market and customer group.  Each reportable segment has similar manufacturing processes, technology and shared infrastructures.  The accounting policies for segment reporting are the same as for the Company as a whole.  We do not segregate assets by segments since our chief operating decision maker, or decision making group, does not use assets as a basis to evaluate a segment's performance.

Medical Market

In the medical market reportable segment, we serve a worldwide customer group consisting of military installations (ships, field hospitals and mobile care units), physicians' office practices across all specialties, urgent care, outpatient and walk-in clinics (free-standing or hospital-connected), health screening operations, home care providers (national, regional or local), nursing homes, ambulance companies, oncology treatment clinics, dialysis centers, pharmacies and hospital labs.  The products manufactured and sold in this segment primarily consist of Piccolo chemistry analyzers and medical reagent discs.

Veterinary Market

In the veterinary market reportable segment, we serve a worldwide customer group consisting of companion animal hospitals, animal clinics with mixed practices of small animals, birds and reptiles, equine and bovine practitioners, veterinary emergency clinics, veterinary referral hospitals, universities, government, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies and private research laboratories.  The products manufactured and sold in this segment primarily consist of VetScan chemistry analyzers and veterinary reagent discs.  We also sell OEM supplied products in this segment consisting of VetScan hematology instruments and related reagent kits, VetScan VSpro coagulation and specialty analyzers and related consumables, VetScan i-STAT analyzers and related VetScan i-STAT consumables and rapid tests.

The table below summarizes revenues, cost of revenues and gross profit from our two operating segments and from certain unallocated items for the three and six months ended September 30, 2011 and 2010 (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended September 30,					Six Months Ended September 30,
	2011			2010		2011			2010
Revenues:
Medical Market	$	7,333		$	6,857	$	14,489		$	13,295
Veterinary Market		31,548			26,649		59,217			53,467
Other(1)		1,144			1,771		2,322			3,468
Total revenues		40,025			35,277		76,028			70,230
Cost of revenues:
Medical Market		3,323			3,237		6,666			6,206
Veterinary Market		13,017			11,143		25,421			22,056
Other(1)		1,664			1,147		2,697			2,434
Total cost of revenues		18,004			15,527		34,784			30,696
Gross profit:
Medical Market		4,010			3,620		7,823			7,089
Veterinary Market		18,531			15,506		33,796			31,411
Other(1)		(520	)		624		(375	)		1,034
Gross profit	$	22,021		$	19,750	$	41,244		$	39,534

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(1) Represents unallocated items, not specifically identified to any particular business segment.