LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Shares of Filtronic Plc. (FTC.L) plunged around 32 percent in the morning trading in London after the manufacturer of microwave electronics products for the wireless telecoms infrastructure market said Wednesday that it now expects that Wireless business results in the current year will be substantially lower than current market expectations. Further, the Broadband business, as announced earlier, has traded marginally lower than in the first half of the previous financial year and slightly below the level expected.
In its statement regarding current year trading, the company stated that the Wireless business is currently engaged in a number of new product introductions with OEM customers.
Based on the anticipated timing of these new product introductions, the company expects sales revenue for the year to increase month on month through the current financial year with a heavy weighting to the second half.
The company had expected t generate a significant element of the growth from an advanced integrated antenna incorporating Filtronic filters and combiners. The development of this product has been delayed due to technical issues that have arisen during final product testing and qualification.
This delay will mean that the antenna will now enter production at least four months later than anticipated. In addition, an anticipated order from an Operator has not been received, and two programmes with a major OEM have been delayed into the next financial year.
These issues are expected t negatively impact the Wireless business in the current year.
The Broadband business has been adversely affected by the curtailment of orders from customers selling to Russia, a market that had been an early adopter of E-band and V-band technology.
The Board believes that demand for E-band and V-band products will grow in the coming years as this technology is adopted more widely, however, it does not foresee a significant improvement in market conditions in the near-term.
'Despite these setbacks, we remain confident in our strategy and the sales growth potential from the qualified OEM products we are supplying and are continuing to develop. This should lead to a much improved trading performance over the medium-term,' the company said in its statement.
Filtronic will release its full Interim Report on January 29.
In London, Filtronic shares were trading 32.08 percent lower at 18 pence.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX