Telecommunications and medical products group BATM Advanced Communications Thursday reported that it fell into a pretax loss at the interim stage as it lost business with the data networks company Nokia Siemens Networks, known as NSN, but said that it expects a boost from next year from new cloud computing-related products. The Israel-based company reported a pretax loss of $551,000 for the six months ended June 30, compared with a profit of $1.5 million a year earlier. Revenue fell to $53.2 million from $55.6 million.
BATM said there was a $6.7 million decline in revenue contribution from business with NSN, a joint venture between the Finnish telecoms group Nokia Corp. and the German industrial company Siemens AG. NSN, which has faced competition from Chinese telecommunications companies such as Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., has cut back business with BATM.
BATM has this year unveiled the T-Metro 8000, a device used for cloud-computing products, and in May launched CELARE, a business providing security products to make cloud computing more secure. Cloud computing is a means of accessing data over the Internet without having to physically access the equipment on which it is stored.
BATM Chief Executive Zvi Marom told Dow Jones Newswires that the T-Metro 8000 is being tested and is expected to make a major contribution to sales in 2013. CELARE’s products are already being used by the Israeli Defense Forces and have attracted the interest of other military forces, he said, adding that the company has been developing civilian versions of CELARE products aimed in particular at the financial sector. Military use of the products is expected to make a contribution to revenue in 2013, he said, adding that civilian use of the products is likely to take off from 2014.
Shares at 1039 GMT were down a penny, or 3.28%, at 15 pence, valuing the company at 61 million pounds ($95.6 million) in a Small Cap index down 0.04%.
