Power & Technology Division

Energy Metering

Revenue for our Power & Technology Division dipped by 10.8% in FY2007 to $52.0 million from $58.3 million in FY2006. This Division remained the second largest contributor to Group revenue at 27.1%, down from 34.6% in FY2006.

The decrease was due largely to declining sales in our key markets of Europe and Asia. However, large revenue improvements in the ASEAN and the new South African markets had partly helped to soften this decrease.

This Division recorded earnings before interest and taxation of $2.3 million, as compared to $8.8 million in FY2006. The decline could be attributed to various macroeconomic factors beyond our control including a weakening US dollar and the resultant foreign exchange losses, and a larger proportion of lower-value products being sold.

The ASEAN region was the largest contributor to this Division’s revenue growth in FY2007. We have managed to advance our market position in the region and together with our strategic partners, we won an Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) contract in Thailand as well as several major contracts in Malaysia.

In FY2007, we have also successfully made inroads into South Africa, and to target the Indian market, we have partnered Omne-Agate Systems Private Limited to form a joint venture company, Wallaby Metering Systems Private Limited, to produce and market electric energy meters and systems for automatic energy reading management.

Last year, EDMI Group managed to clinch a few awards, namely, the Supplier Quality Award for the category of Provision of Metering Equipment, as well as the Market Penetration Leadership Award in the Southeast Asian Automatic Meter Reading market by Frost & Sullivan.

In FY2008, we expect to further strengthen our position within the ASEAN region. The short-term outlook for the year ahead is encouraging, as we have already received substantial orders for our Genius and Atlas series of meters, of which a large quantity will be delivered in FY2008.

We will retain a strong focus on research & development (“R&D”) of our AMR, Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) and other innovative solutions. These advances will provide us with the leverage to penetrate new markets in both mature and developing markets by positioning ourselves as a premier manufacturer of the most advanced electronic metering solutions in the market and broadening our product mix to cater to a larger pool of potential customers.

Our R&D capabilities, while enabling us to keep pace with the multinational manufacturers, will help to differentiate ourselves from our competitors who may use pricing to gain market share.

To expand our global reach, we will continue to explore new markets with untapped potential. We are already well-established in overseas markets particularly in the mature markets of Australasia and Europe and we are confident that we will weather the small setbacks last year and emerge stronger than before. To cushion against the weakening United States dollar, we have started to price our contracts in local currencies in FY2008.

Electrical Efficiency & Energy Management

In keeping with the eco-friendly and energy-saving initiatives in Singapore, our subsidiary, Bridex Harwal Pte Ltd, has put together a suite of solutions consisting of software systems and equipments, to help customers monitor their energy consumption and power quality issues.

In our suite of power quality products, transient free detuned capacitor bank, active harmonic filters and high sampling rate fault recorder are some of our specialist products. We have successfully worked with process plant, data centres and other critical facilities to solve much of their power problems.

As for energy monitoring system, we have introduced a Power Line Carrier (PLC) Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system which has helped customers such as the management of shopping centres and commercial buildings to collect the energy consumption of individual tenants for billing purposes. The uniqueness of this system is the absence of communication cabling which will enable our customers to save substantial cost when implementing such a system.

In addition, we have also developed an electrical monitoring device, eTrack, which is designed for residential homes. This product, which is a “first” in Singapore, allows the end users to track their electrical consumption in real-time and in dollar value. Such information serves as timely feedback to consumers to manage and lower their electricity consumption. We are currently working with various government agencies and private companies to adopt this device which will be launched in 2008.

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