3rd Sep 2014 08:22
LONDON (Alliance News) - Belgravium Technologies PLC Wednesday said its pretax profit rose in the first half of the year, as its efforts to bolster its mobile data computing product range and offer more managed services drove up revenue, and it added that it is confident about its second-half prospects.
"As in previous years, trading for the year as a whole is expected to be second half weighted. The directors are encouraged by the level of activity and enquiries and are confident that a good proportion can be converted to sales in the second half," Chairman John Kembery said in a statement.
The company, the subject of an unsuccessful takeover approach earlier in the summer, reported pretax profit of GBP214,000 for the six months to June 30, up from GBP43,000 a year earlier, as revenue increased to GBP4.6 million, from GBP4.1 million. It had also booked GBP99,000 of exceptional costs for the acquisition of Feedback Data in the first half of 2013, but there were no exceptional costs this year.
Belgravium designs, installs and maintains software applications for the airline, rail, retail and logistics industries. In recent years, it has moved its sales and development emphasis into providing complete operational services as it became more challenging to persuade customers that they need specialised hardware. Its software now has a wider range of functions, and it also offers hardware that may have been designed by other companies.
"Simply stated, we must continue to seek to provide complete data capture solutions because this strategy produces long term working relationships with customers and increases repeat revenues. We shall continue to work with companies which have parts of the solution that we need and when possible we shall buy into those companies," it said.
It got a takeover bid from one of its partners earlier in the year, telematics company Trakm8 Holdings PLC, but decided the offer wasn't high enough and talks between the two sides ended.
It said it had made good progress in the mobile retail market in the first half, notably winning rail industry contracts with First Great Western in the UK and Leo Express in the Czech Republic. It said it was gaining traction in the rail sector thanks to its experience in on-board retail sales for airlines.
The company has also signed a distributor in Japan that specialises in the supply of systems into hazardous areas for both manufacturing and logistics.
"Although sales to Japan have been relatively small at this stage they do represent pilots for projects that should provide a platform for an increase in overall sales into this region," it said.
Belgravium has also delivered a number of pilot systems into the transport sector, which it said are progressing well. Two are to oil distribution customers for around 1,000 vehicles, while it more recently secured a pilot system for the supply of proof of delivery software to operate on Android based mobile phones. The pilot will run through to November and, if successful, the system will be deployed in over 2,000 vehicles.
It said Feedback was also performing well, winning and renewing a number of key maintenance and service contracts in the defence, food manufacturing and retail sectors.
Belgravium Technologies shares were down 0.4% at 5.85 pence Wednesday morning.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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