Antennas and telecoms filters maker Filtronic PLC (LON:FTC) halved in value on Wednesday after one of its major customers said it would not be buying anywhere near as many Massive MIMO (mMIMO) antennas as it first thought.
Filtronic had essentially built the antennas for this client and following the loss of orders, has started a review of its options for this part of the group.
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“Our predominant customer, with whom we had closely collaborated in the development of this product range, has now significantly lowered its forecast demand below that which it had previously provided, having itself been advised that its lead client is now looking to deploy different frequencies to those it had originally indicated, ” the company said in a statement.
“As a consequence of this lower demand and the uncertainty it brings, the board has decided to impair fully the net book value of the capitalised development costs of £0.5mln relating to the development of mMIMO in its half year results.”
Filtronic said it had made considerable efforts to diversify its customer base in recent years and despite this setback to its mMIMO antennas business, it said it had recently approved as a supplier of a niche antenna product to a tier 1 mobile network operator in South Africa.
Filtronic said sales in the first half of its financial year were £10.4mln – down from £12.8mln a year ago.
Shares in Filtronic were 54.7% down at 8.16p in mid-morning trade.