For the three months ending 31 December 2009, Easyhome's net income was $1.4 million or 14 cents a share, down from $1.8 million or 17 cents per share for the same period of 2008. Net earnings were also negatively impacted by before tax restructuring charges of $700,000. Excluding that, net earnings were 18 cents per share.

The company also reported that same store sales were down 1.1% for the fourth quarter, although the company's financial services arm - called Easyfinancial - showed strong improvement with revenues jumping to $1.6 million, 132.7% higher than $700,000 in the final frame of 2008.

Easyhome president and chief executive officer David Ingram said "leasing revenues continue to be affected by lower consumer demand as a result of the economic slowdown."

For the year that also ended 31 December 2009, Easyhome's revenues were $173.7 million, up 6.9% over the $162.5 million recorded for 2008. Net income was $5.8 million or 55 cents per share, a drop of 35.3% from the $9 million or 85 cents per share earned the prior year. Excluding restructuring charges of $1.9 million, net earnings were 67 cents per share.

For the year, same store sales fell 2.3% after gaining 9.1% in 2008.

In a conference call, Ingram admitted 2009 was a "disappointing" in terms of performance and the company wasn't immune to sagging consumer confidence. However, management implement a number of initiatives to increase operational effectiveness and control costs, whose impact were beginning to become noticeable in the fourth quarter.

"Despite the challenging operating environment, Easyhome increased the number of customers and lease agreements during the quarter, and improved collections to achieve meaningful reductions in accounts receivable and charge-offs," Ingram said.

"We improved every key metric during the quarter, and approximately doubled the number of new customer agreements obtained compared with the fourth quarter of 2008," he added.

He also noted that during 2009, Easyhome reduced its outstanding debt by $6 million; recovered 86,700 shares under its ‘normal course issuer bid' for $800,000; paid out a total of $3.6 million in dividends; and, invested $6.2 million to increase Easyfinancial's loan portfolio.

Ingram said the improvements made to the company's collections procedures, coupled with a drive to increase sales through the signing of more lease agreements should produce improvements to the company's overall performance during 2010.

"Although we do not expect consumer demand to recover significantly during the next twelve months, the restructuring of our operations and the consolidation of administrative functions are expected to result in improved bottom line performance," he told the conference call.

"We anticipate opening five to ten corporate stores, 20 to 30 franchise stores and 20 to 30 easyfinancial kiosks in 2010," Ingram said, adding most of the new corporate stores will be opened in the United States.

Total revenues, he added, will probably gain between 5% and 8% this year.