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News –
15 February 2007 |
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Amstrad Plc
INTERIM STATEMENT
SIX MONTHS ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2006 |
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Chairman's Statement |
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Financial
Results
The Group reported a profit before tax of £10.5m (2005: £12.5m)
on sales of £40.6m (2005: £49.6m). The earnings per share
were 9.0p (2005: 10.6p).
The interim dividend is 2.5p (2005: 2.5p) per ordinary share to be
paid on 13 April 2007 to shareholders on the register as at 23 February
2007.
On 8 December 2006 the Company distributed £30.4m of cash to
shareholders by way of a special dividend of 32p per ordinary share
and a final dividend of 4.5p (2005: 4.5p) per ordinary share.
Following payment of these dividends the Group’s net assets have
reduced to £33.5m (2005: £51.9m). As at 31 December 2006
the Group had cash of £28.3m (2005: £48.9m).
Review of Activities
Set top box volumes, which are normally weighted towards the first
half of the financial year, are lower than a year ago. We have continued
to focus on driving down the overall cost of manufacturing set top
boxes and this has helped mitigate the impact of the downward pressure
on prices for more mature products.
The Hong Kong business, which designs, manufactures and sells audio
products to the US and European markets, has managed to maintain margins
despite lower volumes in what is a very competitive audio market.
In the previous financial year all remaining stocks of the e-mailer
were sold to retailers and in the first half of this financial year
a further 14k units were bought and registered by consumers bringing
the total registered since the initial launch of the product to 507k.
The installed base of e-mailers continues to generate significant usage
revenue for the Group from e-mail, internet access, sms, downloading
of ringtones and advertising. Based on the figures for December 2006
usage, this equated to an annualised revenue figure of £6.4m.
Outlook
As stated in the last Annual Report the broadcasting industry is increasingly
moving towards high definition television and we continue to work on
developing HDTV set top boxes and HDTV PVR boxes. We started delivering
HDTV boxes at the end of the last financial year and deliveries of
an HDTV PVR box are due to commence in the second half of the financial
year. We are in the final stages of developing a new PVR box which
should leave us well placed for the future.
We continue to research the smart phone market working with leading
telcos and broadband providers.
Sir
Alan Sugar
Chairman
15 February 2007 |
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Amstrad plc
Register No. 955321
Brentwood House
169 Kings Road
Brentwood
Essex CM14 4EF
Press Enquiries:
Andrew Bloch/David Fraser– Frank PR
Tel: 0207 693 6999
e-mail: amstrad@frankpr.it |
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