Transmode Sticks to Growth Path

Reporting for the first time as a publicly listed company, Swedish optical equipment vendor Transmode Systems AB appears to be sticking to its script of steady and profitable, if unspectacular, growth.

The metro transport specialist, which listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm Exchange on May 27, reported second-quarter revenues of 215.6 million Swedish kronor (US$33.3 million), up 16.7 percent compared with a year earlier. Its net profit for the three months to the end of June was SEK28.6 million ($4.4 million). (See Transmode IPOs and Transmode Unveils IPO.)

Among its numbers, though, perhaps the most notable is its gross margin, which, at 52.9 percent, is impressive for an optical equipment company.

Investors liked the news, as Transmode's share price edged up more than 2.5 percent to SEK 50.25 in morning trading, though that's a little short of the SEK 53 per share price at which the company joined the Stockholm exchange in late May.

In terms of its strategy, the Transmode team is aiming to deliver more of the same. It aims to grow faster than the total metro WDM market, which, according to projections by Infonetics Research Inc. , is set for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 percent between 2010 and 2015, by which time the market is expected to be worth more than $6.3 billion per year.

Its rivals include the likes of ADVA Optical Networking , Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), BTI Systems Inc. , Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN), ECI Telecom Ltd. , Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN), Nokia Networks and Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB; Frankfurt: BTLA).

In its second-quarter presentation slides, Transmode noted that it gained three new customers in North America during the period, cited "good traction" for its Carrier Ethernet products for video transport and mobile backhaul in Europe and continued to build up its presence in Asia/Pacific, where it is looking to gain from its reseller deal with NEC Corp. (Tokyo: 6701) and its recent approval to ship into China. (See China Approves of Transmode, Transmode Tackles Video Transport and Transmode, NEC Team Up.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading