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LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in Filtronic PLC plunged on Thursday as the company warned against a number of variables "outside of its control" affecting sales of its Massive MIMO antennas.
Shares in the communications equipment manufacturer were trading 21% lower at 16.81 pence each.
In its annual general meeting statement, the antenna manufacturer said that successful market acceptance of its mMIMO programme "will be material in defining our near-term development" and that trading in the first half of the year was in line with management expectations.
"Overall market endorsement of the benefits of mMIMO is apparent and we believe this technology will be a key driver of 4G/LTE network densification over the next two years and become a cornerstone for the development of future 5G networks," Filtronic explained.
It added: "We have devoted significant resources to ensuring that we maximise our opportunity with this product, but we caution that we remain dependent on a number of variables outside our control that will determine the rate of market take-up of mMIMO and hence the timing and rate of sales growth for this product."
In financial 2016, the company decided to gradually exit the OEM base station filter subset of the wireless telecommunications market. Over the past two years, it continued to benefit from sales within the business but it now expects them to "continue to diminish" as client programs come to an end.
The company said that the uncertainties regarding the "timing of the market take-up for mMIMO and the rate of tail-off of our legacy filter sales" make forecasts for the near term "very difficult".
"However, we are confident that our position overall continues to strengthen and our outlook remains positive," it added.
