Coe hopes for growth as Asian transport sector invests

The Leeds-based company, which develops CCTV systems used across airports, sea ports, rail networks and cities, believes looking East will help it to weather short-term economic uncertainty.

"Trading conditions have remained very tough throughout the period with significant downturns experienced particularly in the UK," said chairman Alison Fielding.

"However, our business development activities are yielding good results and our pipeline of opportunities and partner base is increasing, especially throughout Asia."

Yesterday the company said timing of orders drove revenues in the six months to the end of December down 37 per cent to 1.2m. This meant it made a pre-tax loss of 444,000, compared to a 113,000 loss a year earlier. However, it expects the second half to be far better. Dr Fielding added Coe expected its full-year results to be in line with expectations.

Chief executive Ian Jefferson said: "These interim results are a reflection on the timing of shipments which this year, as previously reported, are weighted heavily towards the second half."

He went on: "Our business development activity continues to progress well particularly in Asia where we are bidding on an increasing number of larger opportunities.

"Therefore, despite the short-term economic uncertainty we remain confident that our strategy will deliver future growth."

Coe wants to replicate the success of its Seoul Metro contract in Asia. This contract, worth more than 1m in revenue, is being rolled out across the South Korean capital's underground network, and is due to complete over the next few months.

Growth in Asia is skewed towards the transport sector, Coe said, and it hopes for more sizeable contract wins in the near future.

In the Middle East and India, the group is also recruiting staff to support its expansion. It is also working on a number of projects which it hopes will lead to significant orders.

Late last year it appointed Kulvinder Singh as regional sales director for South Asia & the Middle East. Mr Singh previously worked for Coe and helped it to win key projects including CCTV surveillance systems for metro lines in Delhi, Indian military sites and the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Coe has also invested in expanding and honing its product range. It recently launched a new range of single and multi-channel video encoders and decoders.

The X-Stream series compresses analogue video signals to allow high-quality video streams to be transmitted over Ethernet connections.

The series includes features such as onboard video analytics, electronic image stabilisation and dual streaming.

The "intelligent" system uses analytics to identify and alert operators to incidents. Complex algorithms can alert operators to problems such as abandoned objects and trespassers.

"The X-Stream range is an exciting development in the video transmission market," said Mr Jefferson. "Enabling analogue cameras to stream low-latency, low-bandwidth video across an Ethernet network is of huge benefit. The addition of video analytics and other features offers the user a sophisticated package for the modern surveillance system."

Coe has a global customer base across three main sectors – traffic and transport, city-centre surveillance and industrial complexes.

The company has installed its systems in the London Congestion Charge network as well as in underground lines, high speed rail systems and road systems all over the world.

In the UK it has city-centre systems in over 35 UK towns and cities including Leeds and Bradford.

Upgrade on the underground

Coe is upgrading surveillance on the Seoul underground.

The Leeds-based company is supplying CCTV surveillance for lines 1, 3 and 4 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway in South Korea.

With 67 stations across the three underground lines, each station will operate between 64 and 128 cameras, meaning the central system will be responsible for controlling up to 8,000 cameras.

The contract, which is worth more than 1m, combines analogue and Internet-based technology.

It will allow real-time monitoring of all video, as well as automated camera tracking and it will also feature a sophisticated video management system.

The project is being delivered through Coe's partner Dong Young Information Communication.