Datong fights spending cuts

Dean Blood, chief executive of the Leeds-based group, whose devices help police and security services to track criminals’ and terrorists’ mobile phones, was updating the City before today’s AGM.

He said UK and European markets are performing in line with management expectations but trading elsewhere had been hit.

“Whilst economic conditions continue to impact funding of defence and security budgets on an international scale, Datong’s position in the intelligence gathering sector has supported a solid performance during the first half year period in the group’s traditional geographic markets.

“The growth in the Americas markets during the last financial year has continued slightly ahead of management expectations in this period.

“Datong has experienced continued strong interest in recent new products launched into the market, with initial sales into priority targets achieved.”

It expects to achieve further organic growth in those markets during the second half of the year.

The firm added: “Following a promising start to the period, order intake and revenue from Third Party products in the Rest of World territories have slowed dramatically reflecting protracted procurement cycles and budgetary delays in certain countries.

“Despite a healthy sales opportunity pipeline, current market conditions are expected to lead to a material reduction in Third Party product revenues in the current half year period resulting in full year revenues for the group being lower than those in 2010.”

Profits for H1 and annually are expected to be in line with market expectations.