Amber Technology, who is struggling in the current trading environment, appear to be moving away from the custom install market instead they are opting to look for growth in the digital signage, video conferencing and signage market.
The share listed Company who distributes several custom install brands, as well as the Onkyo home entertainment brand in the consumer market’ is tipping poor results this year after reporting a 7.6 percent decline in revenues and a profit slumped of 11.1% to $1.6 million at June 2011.
Speaking at their Annual General Meeting CEO Peter Amos said that profits this year could fall to as low as $1M he also said that Amber was now looking for growth from new Pro AV markets spanning video conferencing and digital signage.
Amos told shareholders that 2010 was “A challenging year with a slow second half” he said that fewer capital projects had been completed by the Company and that the Company was seeing consolidation by suppliers and customers of Amber products in the marketplace.
Amos said in a recent report “In the second half of the year business slowed significantly. Among the major customers for this business unit are many of Australia’s leading electronics retailers, where sales of home theatre products and electronics accessories in the post-Christmas period
were slower than expected”.
He added “The depressed new home building sector continued to hinder sales efforts in our custom home market. Despite these challenges, there are signs that new offerings to market from a number of our major suppliers have been well received”.
Recently Amber completed an EDI implementation which delivered better warehouse management for the Company, they are also moving into new head office premises in Sydney.
During the shareholder meeting the Company failed to mention that earlier in the year they had issued a false statement to shareholders claiming that they were “not” under investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission when in fact they were.
The investigation into claims by Digital Cinema, that they were bullied by Amber Technology over the sale of Onkyo products, which the retailer was sourcing from JB Hi Fi and overseas suppliers was in fact being conducted at the time that Amber issued the ASX statement.
Since the issuing of the statement by Amber, ASIC have written to Digital Cinema saying that the actions of Amber may well have breached the Trades Practises Act but is unlikely to lessen competition “in a substantial way” due to the small distribution that Amber have with their consumer product range.
Amber has refused to say why they deliberately misled shareholders over the Digital Cinema issue.
In other moves set to impact Amber, consumers are now moving to buy Amber distributed products online or from overseas distributors. Currently Onkyo products are selling in the USA and Asia at up to 50% cheaper than what Amber are recommending as the retail price for the same products.
Amber executives are refusing to comment on the Companies falling sales which could hit less than $31 million this year.
