ADB Group Reports Record First-Half 2008 Financial Results

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
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GENEVA — ADB Holdings SA (SWX: ADBN) reported today ADB Group’s unaudited consolidated financial results for the first half of the year 2008.

Digital TV Equipment segment (Advanced Digital Broadcast)

The Digital TV Equipment yielded US$ 166 million of revenue during the first-half of 2008, and delivered Earnings Before Interest and Taxes of US$ 16 million, or 9.7% of revenue.

High-definition TV (HDTV) product sales accounted for 67% of the Digital TV Equipment revenue, up from 49% in the first half of 2007 and 57% in the entire year 2007. Personal Video Recorders (both high and standard definition) represented 29% of the Digital TV Equipment revenue, compared to 22% in the first half of 2007 and 26% of the full year 2007.

The first half of the year was particularly strong for IPTV segment, which constituted 31% of the Group revenue. The main drivers were both excellent performance of ADB’s products as well as rapid pace of deployment at recently acquired customers. Terrestrial segment represented 20% of Group revenue, compared to 12% in 2007. This segment’s share of revenue increased due to strong take-up in Northern Europe and solid demand in Italy. Cable maintains its position as the largest segment of the Group, representing 35% of the overall sales. Satellite segmental sales represented 11% of the overall Group revenue, delivering mainly high-end products.

The Group technology received significant recognition during the first-half of the year. In March, the IPTV World Forum awarded ADB Group with “Best IPTV Customer Premise Equipment Technology”, for the second year in a row. It is exceptional for the same company to be able to win the award two subsequent times.

In May the Group obtained a first CableLabs’ “tru2way™” (formerly known as OCAP) certification for its new box model specially designed for the US cable market. Building on this achievement, in June ADB Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the leading US cable operators and major consumer electronics companies for the committed development of “tru2way”, the new interactive technology platform for the US cable market. This is a significant milestone in the Group North American strategy.

Software and Services segment (Osmosys and Vidiom Systems)

The Software and Services recorded revenue of US$ 9.4 million, out of which US$ 4.4 million were intergroup sales. The segment recorded a Loss Before Interest and Taxes of US$ 4.9 million. Revenue fell short of the Group expectations due to a faster than anticipated reduction of development services demand from one customer in US. Therefore the Group has decided to accelerate the reorganization of its Software and Services activities in the US to focus mainly on supporting Group’s North American growth strategies.

The Software and Services segment remains a powerful facilitator in building the Group overall business, and plays an important role in the Group overall strategy. Following the official adoption of open-standard middleware by the US cable, the Group is currently seeing an increased interest and commitments to deploying such technologies in North America. Therefore, the Group intends to continue its investment in this segment to develop a complete product and services offering and targeting its self-sustainability and profitability.

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