10 November 2009

Sarantel Group PLC

Trading update for the year ended 30 September 2009 

Sarantel (AIM: SLG; 'Sarantel' or the 'Group'), the leading manufacturer of revolutionary filtering antennas for mobile and wireless devices, announces a year end trading update for the 12 months to 30 September 2009.

Revenues are expected to have grown by 55 per cent to £2.8m despite a challenging economy that has negatively impacted the consumer GPS sector.  

Although demand from larger GPS customers was lower, Sarantel's innovative antennas are being deployed in a much broader range of applications, with shipments to more than 300 customers through direct or indirect sales.  

Progress remains encouraging in high-value markets. Orders from Iridium have settled into a regular monthly pattern and there is good potential for Sarantel's new Iridium short-burst data antenna, which has already been shipped in production quantities to NAL Research and Solara Data. In its Q2 2009 report, Iridium reported a 60 per cent increase in short-burst data and this market provides an important growth opportunity for Sarantel.  

In the military market, Sarantel has announced a number of orders at the design, evaluation and production stages, where the primary concerns of clients are robust design and exceptional accuracy, both of which are key features of the GeoHelix GPS antenna. 

At 30 September 2009, the Group had cash balances of £0.9 million. As announced separately today, Sarantel has raised £2.25 million (before expenses) through a placing to fund sales growth and expansion. 

The Board remains confident of Sarantel's potential, particularly now that location-based services and augmented reality is becoming an increasingly important feature of many new consumer applications. The Board believes that such applications will highlight the need for the greater accuracy offered by Sarantel's antennas, when compared with alternative antenna technologies.   

Sarantel expects to publish its preliminary results for the year to 30 September 2009 in February 2010.

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About Sarantel 

Sarantel is a leader in the design of high-performance miniature antennas for portable wireless applications including hand-held navigation, personal and asset tracking, satellite radio and satellite phones. Sarantel's revolutionary ceramic filtering antennas offer dramatically improved performance over existing antenna designs, resulting in a clearer signal, better range and a 90 per cent reduction in the amount of signal radiation absorbed by the body. Because of their smaller size and higher capabilities, Sarantel's antennas enable manufacturers to create innovative wireless products for the GPS, WiMax, Satellite Radio and Satellite phone markets.