A tough six months for digital set-top box manufacturer, Pace Mirco Technology, were revealed this morning, with turnover falling by 61% to £83.4 million for the interim period.
Losses before tax and goodwill hit £15.9 million for the half year to 30 November 2002, down heavily on the £22.2 million profit of the same time period in 2001.
The results come after a string of profit warnings, in which the group said that it is not optimistic that sales will pick up in the near future (see Pace Issues New Profits Warning). The slow take-up of digital television in Europe and the US has resulted in targets being missed and losses accrued.
Shipments of set-top boxes (or home gateways) and other Pace products fell 45% to 651,000 units. The UK market has declined sharply since last year, forcing Pace revenues down 66% to £65.0 million, although its share of the UK market remained stable at over 50%.
“There have been several reasons for this deterioration including a reduction in sales of gateways to our two cable customers, NTL and Telewest, and lower shipments to Sky digital, whose conversion of analogue subscribers to digital has been completed,” says Pace.
Outlook Today, chairman Sir Michael Bett said that he expects to see some improvement in performance in the second half of the year, although as a caveat to this he added that “competition remains strong and there continue to be market uncertainties.”
“In the UK digital TV has reached 40% of consumer homes and penetration is likely to continue growing over the next few years, although in the short-term we do not expect to see any significant increase in revenues over current levels,” was the prognosis.
