SRT Marine Technology in the News

16th July 2010 - AIM Journal

SRT exploits strong position in marine market

Software Radio Technology is starting to benefit from countries around the world making AIS marine positional technology mandatory for smaller boats. SRT is on course to become profitable this year.
Existing mandates from governments cover 500,000 vessels over the next three years and there are more to come. At the moment SRT controls the lower-priced end of the market and there is little competition but this will not be true for ever. SRT continues to spend on R&D so that it can maintain its lead over any competitors.
SRT increased its revenues from £2.52m to £3.56m in the year to March 2010. The loss was cut from £1.28m to £386,000. SRT already had an order book worth $4m by the beginning of this financial year. Most of this should be for delivery over two or three months and the majority of orders are for the newer Class A transceiver where gross margins are higher. Since the year end further contracts have been won. That means that SRT should generate more in revenues in the six months to September 2010 than in the previous year.
Gross margins could reach around 50% depending on the change in the product mix. Overheads should not go above £2m a year so SRT has a good chance of moving into profit in the first half of this year.
The former TETRA radio operations were all closed down in 2008-09 but SRT still owns the technology. It recently received an upfront payment of $225,000 from a licence agreement with Swiss Space Sensors Technology AG and there could be future royalties from this deal but there are no related costs.
SRT has a strong balance sheet because it is able to demand advance payments from customers. There was £952,000 in the bank at the end of March 2010.