Amstrad lifted by set-top box demand

Electronics group Amstrad today said a Christmas rush for its digital set-top boxes had helped half-year profits to double to £14.2m (€20.6m).

Amstrad – headed by former Tottenham Hotspur chairman Sir Alan Sugar - reported an “exceptional” jump in sales as satellite TV subscribers rushed to upgrade their technology.

The company supplies broadcaster Sky with hardware for its Sky Plus service, which allows customers to pause live TV and record one satellite programme while viewing another.

Sky revealed earlier this month that the total number of households in the UK with Sky Plus increased by a record 168,000 in the quarter to 642,000, representing 8.4% of its total subscribers.

With shipments of set-top boxes to Sky Italia also beginning ahead of schedule in August, Amstrad said sales jumped to £63.5m (€91.9m) during the six months to December 31 compared with £29.5m (€42.7m) a year earlier.

But sales of the cut-price videophone launched in September have been low and the company is hoping a series of initiatives will drive sales, including a £2m (€2.9m) TV advertising campaign at the end of last year.

The E3 videophone is the third in a series from Amstrad and follows the original E-mailer launched in March 2000 and E-mailer Plus, which came out two years ago.

The new product includes a colour screen and enables users to see each other while they talk – in addition to the e-mail, SMS and internet access that were features of its earlier ranges.

The company subsidises sales of the E-mailer machines and recoups this money through revenues from their usage.

Sugar said the product represented an important milestone and the technology marked a “significant leap forward” for the company, which would create new opportunities for growth.

He added: “We have a good order book for set-top boxes for the rest of the financial year and have been awarded further orders by our customers that will secure sales well into and throughout our next financial year.

“As such, our expectations for this financial year’s result remains positive.”