Wavenet lines up major UK deal

Wireless technology developer Wavenet has big plans for its growing list of products, both in new markets and existing ones, in the US, the UK and Australia.

Wavenet is aiming to double its revenue in the current financial year from $6 million in the year to June 2005. The key to this is the outcome of a major deal with one of the largest telecommunications providers in the UK currently under negotiation.

Founded in 1997, Wavenet listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2000 and claims to be one of the largest wireless developers in the country.

Recently appointed Wavenet chief executive Steve Metlitzky told WA Business News discussions in the UK had been positive and the deal had the potential to add many millions of dollars a year in revenue to the group.

Wavenet employs a design team of 20 at its Burswood office and also has a manufacturing arm in South-East Asia.

Its revenue streams are evenly spread among the product range, which is marketed in the mobile computing, wireless point of sale and automatic vehicle location sectors.

The company also claims to hold 80 per cent of the US wireless modem market, which it supplies through its base-level product, the Boomer 3 Wireless Modem. Some of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies in the world are Boomer 3 customers, including Israel-based Lipman Electronics, Motorola and Velocita Wireless (formerly known as Cingular).

However, Mr Metlitzky, who joined Wavenet in November from hand-held computing developer Yambay Technologies, said that while the modem business underpinned Wavenet with sound revenue, this was not enough to take the company and shareholder value to the next level.

And with a current market capitalisation of about $8.7 million – approximately equal to its assets – investors seem to agree.

“Until now we have really been just working away under the investment radar,” Mr Metlitzky said.

He said the idea was to move up the value chain, by offering in-house developed products such as its own wireless point-of-sale device, similar to wired EFTPOS devices.

“Effectively our products will stand on their own two feet,” Mr Metlizky said.

Sales, he added, had benefited from recently introduced consumer protection regulation in the US, which meant that restaurants could no longer take diners’ credit cards away from the table, creating the need for a wireless solution.