2016-11-24 07:00:06 CET

2016-11-24 07:00:06 CET


REGLAMENTUOJAMA INFORMACIJA

Anglų
Bittium Oyj - Company Announcement

Bittium Corporation updates its strategy and financial targets


Stock exchange release

Free for publication on November 24, 2016 at 8 am (CET+1)

Bittium Corporation updates its strategy and financial targets

Bittium Corporation has updated its strategy to strengthen its position in the
global markets and to speed up its growth. The company plans to make significant
investments in the future by increasing significantly the R&D investments in its
own products and solutions in the year 2017. In line with the nature of the
defense and public safety markets, the investments will pay back in a longer
time period and therefore Bittium plans to activate the most of the R&D
investments to its balance sheet. The company has a strong balance sheet and
financial position.

Bittium has decided to establish a new product and service area around
healthcare technology. By combining healthcare technologies with Bittium’s long
-term experience and knowhow in wireless and security technologies give the
company good conditions to serve its customers in healthcare sector by offering
them new kinds of products and services. As the first step to build the
competencies in healthcare technology on November 10, 2016 Bittium acquired Mega
Electronics Ltd, a company specialized in measuring and monitoring biosignals.

Bittium continues to search for inorganic growth opportunities in all its
product and service areas and is prepared to invest in acquisitions that
strengthen the company’s growth strategy.

According to its updated strategy the company’s business will be divided into
three product and service areas effective as of December 1, 2016: Defense &
Security, Connectivity and Medical Technologies.

Defense & Security

In the Defense & Security product and service area Bittium offers globally
leading products and services for its customers in the defense, security and
public safety markets. Bittium aims to increase significantly investments in
various authority and special terminals as well as in related software
development and extend its tactical communication product portfolio for defense
industry. Growth in the net sales is sought especially from own products and
product platforms that Bittium offers for international defense and public
safety markets.

Bittium’s competitiveness in these markets is based on trust and reliability, hi
-quality of the products and services, as well as on advanced technology and
security knowhow developed within the company during the last 30 years. Bittium
offers its customers in the defense market new kind of efficiency for their
management systems with products that enable faster data transfer, better
mobility, and large compatibility with other communication systems.

In the public safety markets the transition towards LTE-based technology is
expected to accelerate in the next few years. As the security threats are
growing increasingly more security demands are set for the communication
systems. Bittium increases investments in further developing its product
offering for these markets. The company also continues offering public safety
markets R&D services to develop special terminals and related systems that use
both terrestrial and satellite networks.

In the defense, security and public safety markets there are signs of
unification regarding technologies as well as in security demands. Also many
customers, partners and supply chains are mostly the same and the trend towards
this is strengthening. Bittium will merge two separate product and service areas
into one and with that synergy Bittium is able to better serve the customers in
defense and security technology.

The defense, security and public safety markets are slowly evolving markets by
their nature. They are characterized by long sales cycles driven by the national
governments’ long preparation periods of projects and purchase programs. The
purchases of the selected products are typically executed over several years.

Connectivity

The development of wireless technology continues and the digitalization creates
growing need for wireless connections. Bittium offers R&D services and wireless
connectivity solutions for its customers, and the demand is expected to increase
within the next few years. The competitiveness of the company in these markets
is based on the strong technology and security competence, as well as on trust
and reliability, and quality. The more critical the system is, the more
significant role Bittium’s strengths have.

The demand for developing 4G-technology based network equipment is decreasing as
the technology and market reach their maturity. However, Bittium is already
strongly involved in the development of 5G technology which in a long run gives
the company a good position to offer even more advanced connectivity solutions
also for customers in other markets.

Medical Technologies

In the healthcare sector remote monitoring and home care markets are growing
strongly. Patient monitoring in the hospital environment is also changing into
wireless. These trends create demand for the digitalization of services,
wireless capability and secure connections. For these markets Bittium has
decided to establish a new product and service area around healthcare
technology. As the first step to build the competencies in healthcare
technology, on November 10, 2016 Bittium acquired Mega Electronics Ltd, a
company specialized in measuring and monitoring biosignals.

By combining healthcare technologies with Bittium’s long-term experience and
competence in wireless and security technologies give Bittium good conditions to
serve its customers in healthcare sector by offering them new kinds of products
and services.

Bittium plans to strengthen its product and service offering for these markets
also by searching for acquisition targets that complements the whole.

Financial targets

Bittium has announced earlier that it targets 10 percent annual growth in net
sales and to reach EBIT level 10 percent of net sales in the year 2017 at the
latest. The company believes that in the coming years it is able to grow its net
sales even more than the earlier announced target, and therefore sets up a
target to exceed the annual 10 percent growth target of the net sales.

However, Bittium believes, that during the year 2017 it is not yet able reach
the targets set for the growth in the net sales and EBIT level. The reason for
this is the termination of significant customer cooperation with a global
network equipment manufacturer, of which Bittium announced earlier, that is
expected to materialize faster and more extensively than the company estimated
earlier. According to the information received by Bittium, the net sales from
this customer cooperation will end completely in the beginning of the second
quarter of the year 2017. To this extend this kind of extensive and rapid
decrease in the services business net sales is most likely difficult to be
replaced in a short term. In addition, the operating profit level of the year
2017 is also affected by the planned investments to enable the future growth.

Bittium targets further to increase the share of net sales generated from own
products and product platforms. According to the targets Bittium announced
earlier, in the year 2017 the share of net sales generated from own products and
product platforms is clearly higher than in the year 2014, when the product
based net sales was 26.7 percent of the net sales.

Oulu, November 24, 2016
Bittium Corporation
The Board of Directors

Further information

Hannu Huttunen
CEO
Tel. +358 40 344 3507

Distribution

Nasdaq Helsinki
Main media

Bittium

Bittium specializes in the development of reliable, secure communications and
connectivity solutions leveraging its 30 year legacy of expertise in advanced
radio communication technologies. Bittium provides innovative products and
services, customized solutions based on its product platforms and R&D services.
Complementing its communications and connectivity solutions, Bittium offers
proven information security solutions for mobile devices and portable computers.
Starting from November 10th, Bittium offers its customers also healthcare
technology products and services in biosignal measuring in the areas of
cardiology, neurology, rehabilitation, occupational health and sports medicine.
Net sales of continuing operations in 2015 was EUR 56.8 million and operating
profit was EUR 2.3 million. Bittium is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.
www.bittium.com


11241314.pdf