Softcat Regulatory News (SCT)

23 Jun 2006 07:01

Screen Technology Group plc23 June 2006 For immediate release 23 June 2006 Screen Technology Group plc Trading update Screen Technology Group plc ("Screen Technology") wishes to update shareholderson current trading and prospects.. The Company's sales pipeline continues to be strong and at the recent exhibitionat Infocomm in Orlando Florida in June, the ITrans product was very wellreceived with extremely high levels of interest from end-users and distributionpartners. Two parallel developments of modular ITrans products, one in-house and a secondin conjunction with an OEM partner, are also now progressing and the firstprototype modular ITrans products were shown at Infocomm. These modular productsenable very large ITrans screens to be easily transported to customer sites inmodular form and assembled in situ and the business expects these products toform a increasingly significant part of sales from early 2007. As previously stated, the key objective is now to increase the Company'sproduction capacity. The issues encountered earlier in the year with productionhave been resolved and yields of ITrans display tiles have improved. Thedevelopment of the high-speed production machines is continuing with each of theproduction stages within those machines working well. Our strategy during theyear has been to concentrate on the production of demonstration units and wehave been upgrading existing demonstrator stock with the latest in productionquality to ensure that ITrans is shown to high-value end-users in the bestpossible light. The Board believes that this has been a successful strategy. The business in poised to increase production and sales in the second half of2006. However the Board is mindful that production schedules and therefore salesby the end of 2006 depend critically upon timing and that even with high-speedproduction running at capacity by the end of the year, some sales previouslyexpected this year are likely to move into early 2007. The unpredictability ofproduction schedules over the next few months might also increase the timebetween production of tiles and the despatch of finished displays to customers.The sales forecast for 2006 was heavily dependent on the delivery of the newhigh speed production machines and on the sale of modular products. The timingof both of these has been affected by delays by third party suppliers that willhave a consequential impact on sales for 2006. The Board's current expectationstherefore are that sales for this year are likely to be significantly belowcurrent market expectations. However, the board is confident that by the startof 2007, high speed tile production will be well underway and modular productswill also be in production, supplying a very strong order book. The boardtherefore believes that any effect on sales forecasts for 2007 will be small. Tom Jarman, Chief Executive said: "2006 will be a defining year for Screen Technology. By the end of the year weexpect to have high speed production of ITrans, a technology that is unrivalledin a very large and growing international market. We expect to have proven theproduct and our pricing model with customers and to have increased our range ofproducts with modular systems fully available in 2007." For further information please contact: Screen Technology Group plc www.screentechnology.comTom Jarman, CEO 01223 559600Simon Barton, Finance DirectorIsabel Podda, Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5001 Notes to Editor Screen Technology is the designer and manufacturer of revolutionaryhigh-resolution large-screen displays designed for high ambient lightenvironments. The high resolution and high definition of the Company's displays give ahigh-quality image suitable for advertising images and video as well as publicinformation displays. They are visible at short viewing distances as well asacross larger venues making them particularly suitable for large retail outlets,shopping malls, control rooms and transport concourses where customers might bewithin 10m of the display, a distance at which LED display technologies becomeunsuitable. The high brightness means that the displays are also easily visiblein the kind of high ambient light environments where conventional LCD or plasmatechnologies become unusable. Screen Technology's patent protected technology uses moulded optical fibre tilesto produce seamless large displays using standard production LCD panels. Thescaleable modular technology enables screen to be built in a wide variety ofshapes and of theoretically unlimited size. Screen Technology Group plc listed on AIM, a market operated by the London StockExchange, on 1 August 2005. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange