Swiss set top group ADB filed pretty decent results, marred perhaps by a lack of organic growth, for 2010, for the first time including its acquisition late last year of Pirelli Broadband Solutions. But it says that it has a US breakthrough on the cards.
ADB declared that it now has not one, but two major cable accounts in the US, but failed to name them, describing them as a tier one accounts. Tier one means one of the big five Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Charter or Cox, and given that Charter and Cox have just signed major deals with TiVo for DVR and OTT technology, we’d say it is likely to be one of the other three.
UK set top maker Pace, which has only recently landed the title of largest Pay TV set top maker in the world, had a similar breakthrough about five years ago with Comcast, and this was at the expense of Motorola. This involved a lengthy 3 year run-up, because Pace had to dance through hoops to support the Motorola conditional access system. A similar deal for ADB would be huge for the company, and it put Pace on the US map and brought it some $500 million and many follow on US deals.
ADB would only say that it ‘is pleased to announce today that it has concluded a deal with one of the largest cable operators in the United States for a delivery of a turnkey Pay TV solution for applications in the commercial segment. This solution includes ADB’s next generation set-back box (which squeezes a DVR onto an SDHC Flash memory card), together with communication and system management software, as well as the integration of the entire system.’
It added, that it has also just received a purchase order from another major US (tier one) cable operator for the same type of product and application and said, ‘After a lot of work, it feels good to finally get going with the US cable market, in addition to the US IPTV market where we have been successfully operating for years’
The company expects a modest contribution from the US in 2011, but says the deal is strategically important. The company also signed new deals at CableTel in Bulgaria, Canal Digital in Norway, Telecom Italiaand First Media in Indonesia as well as TSTT in Trinidad&Tobago during 2010.
The results showed that revenue had reached $357 million with the Pirelli business responsible for $20 million of that and it believes that revenue growth during 2011 will be in excess of 40%, which would put it around $500 million. The company is planning to play investors a dividend.
Net profit after tax amounted to $12.9 million or 3.6% of revenue, compared to $15.3 million in 2009. ADB has $31.6 million in cash.