Market applauds as Amino returns to profitability in 1H 2008
Amino Technologies plc (AMO.L), the broadband network software firm, said turnover and unit shipments for the six-month period ended 31 May both increased by 7.1% over H1 2007 to £14.53m and 256,000 units.
The Cambridge-based Group moved into a pre-tax profit of £1.09m from a loss of £0.40m in the same period last year. It reported net cash balances of £19.0m.
The group's shares gained 6.7% on the news to trade at 56p and deliver a market capitalisation of just over £32m.
Chairman Keith Todd said: "These results highlight the hard work that has been undertaken to effectively manage costs during the half year. The return to operating profit in the first six months of the year and our strong cash balances provide a solid platform from which to build on our successes to date.
"The Board believes that the Group is well placed to benefit from the growth in the IPTV market.
"In addition to its market leading set-top box business, Amino recently acquired AssetHouse, an IPTV software business, to broaden its product offering and help address the Tier 1 telco market.
"Also significant is the recent appointment of Andrew Burke as Chief Executive Officer. With his extensive knowledge of and credibility in the IPTV marketplace, Andrew is the ideal person to deliver the next phase of growth for Amino.
"The Board expects to build on the solid performance over the last 18 months, balancing investment with profitable growth as we strive to establish sustained profitability."
Mr Burke has outlined a three tiered strategy which will see Amino driving scale in its key markets, expanding its product line and extending its offering across the value chain.
Amino said that MPEG-2 products continued to represent the core (85%) of its shipments although early volume shipments were made of the new MPEG-4 HD (high definition) product range into the hospitality and EMEA telco markets.
Profits in the first half were boosted by the 8.5 percentage points improvement in gross margin achieved on the established MPEG-2 SD product range, made primarily through management of component and manufacturing costs.
The company said market research reports forecast that much of the growth in IPTV over the next three years will be in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and APAC deploying open standard solutions and Western Europe and North America tier 1 telcos deploying Microsoft based solutions.
To date, Amino has built its business worldwide on open standard solutions and has established channel partners and customers in Eastern Europe and APAC. Whilst in Western Europe and North America tier 3 telco and hospitality, education and enterprise markets customers will continue to be important to Amino's growth, the Board believes that the combination of AssetHouse and Amino's next generation set-top box products will also enable it to win its fair share of the tier 1 telco market.
