Mobile strengthens team as group halves annual losses

Mobile Tornado, the company that can turn mobile phones into walkie-talkies, has appointed former Motorola Solutions director Avi Tooba as chief operating officer as it reported a halving of annual losses.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th May 2016, 17:06 BST
Updated 12th May 2016, 18:10 BST

The Harrogate-based firm said its results for 2015 showed a marked improvement. At the adjusted EBITDA level, losses were halved from £2.5m in 2014 to £1.26m in 2015, following a combination of ​a ​reduced cost​ ​base and increased recurring license revenues.

​However, the group said that recurring revenue from its Tier 1 mobile network operator customers is growing more slowly.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Chairman Peter Wilkinson said: “Given the relative sizes of these businesses, it is a more difficult area for us to control and influence. The continued flat performance of this part of our business remains below market expectations although we anticipate that the strengthening of our management team will help to improve this in the coming months.”

Mr Tooba was previously senior director of engineering at Motorola Solutions, overseeing engineering operations and some 500 engineers at the Israel Design Centre. Prior to that, he was director of engineering at Motorola Networks, which was later sold to Nokia.

Jeremy Fenn, CEO of Mobile Tornado, said: “Avi will lead our technical and operations teams and bring huge experience to our business as we continue to engage Tier 1 mobile network operators, major global enterprises and public sector bodies. Having worked across all major radio platforms, his inputs as we develop our strategy for next generation critical communication platforms will be invaluable.”

Mr Tooba added: “Instant and unified communication is going to grow enormously over the coming years as the networks are upgraded to 3G/4G infrastructures.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Mobile Tornado has a technical platform that will enable it to be a leader in this area, delivering state-of-the-art solutions for our customers.”

Mr Wilkinson said that the group sees opportunities in the homeland security markets.

“However, contracts in these markets are typically capital expenditure in nature for our clients and are difficult to predict with any certainty,” he said.

“Accordingly, the board’s expectations for the year remain unchanged.”

Related topics:Motorola SolutionsHarrogate