Weak Currency Slows Sales Growth

Despite the increase in output in terms of unit sold for the first half of the year, u-blox, the Swiss chip manufactures has confessed that sales has been slow and this has been attributed to the weak state of dollar in the international market.

The company also revealed that market prices for its mainstream products also decreased at a similar rate as in the same period in 2007. In addition, production problems with the manufacturing partner of its Antaris 4 chipsets have resulted in constraints on product deliveries and consequently limited sales growth.

According to a statement made available by u-blox, sales in the Americas declined by 13 percent, again because of the U.S. dollar and the continued shift in customers' production to Asia. In Europe, the Middle East, and Africa there was an increase of 17 percent. In Asia, numbers fell by 1 percent; the company noted that it did a significant business in the first half of 2007 in Asia that could not be repeated this year.

However, the company hopes that the second half of 2008 will show stronger sales than the first half and product capacity has been expanded accordingly. New customer projects will go into production phase and will generate additional demand. It expects a sales growth in the second half over the first half-year in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent.

In order to keep pace with development, the company is making arrangement to release some new products and these include a new technology platform in 2009 designed for application and sector specific products. Later this year u-blox plans to launch significant additions to its product line, including a new module form factor.