Synchronica cautious despite higher revenues

8th Jun 2010 07:21

Revenues edged up at mobile phone messaging group Synchronica in the year to December 31, but converting its sales pipeline into revenues will need to speed up if the company is to meet expectations for the year.Pre-tax losses halved to £3.22m from £6.49m the previous year as revenues increased to £3.83m from £3.71m.'Thanks to the company's reseller network and the MessagePhone, 2010 has started positively building the sales pipeline to a higher level than ever before,' the company said. 'However to date the conversion of this pipeline to revenue has been slower than expected. The directors believe that the sales pipeline is sufficient to meet market expectations for the year, provided there is an accelerated rate of conversion to revenue in the remainder of the year.'Synchronica's revenues come from licensing its messaging technology to mobile phone providers. It also recently launched the MessagePhone, a low-cost Blackberry-like mobile phone, which, like the company's technology, is targeted at developing countries.Synchronica will receive 3% of revenues from sales of MessagePhones, which sell for as little as $99 each. So far it has received orders for 25,000 of the devices from a Zambian operator and for 20,000 from one in Columbia.The company has two models for charging customers to use its mobile technology. They can pay an upfront one-off fee per user or they can pay a yearly license fee per user.