In view of the positive market prospects for security-oriented ID systems in Smart Card and passport format, the company anticipates positive development in both sales and earnings for the next two years, as the order income in Q1 2008 has increased significantly.

Irrespective of the positive market prospects, the technology group achieved earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of €26.4 million in 2007, lagging behind earnings for the previous year of €34.4 million.

This was due to weak earnings in the first half of the year, risk provisions in inventories, higher personnel expenditures and the expansion of research and development activities in the new sites.

Earnings before taxes (EBT) fell to €28.4 million (PY: €38.0 million). This corresponds to a pretax profit margin of 17.9% (PY: 23.7%). Net earnings amounted to €19.1 million at the end of 2007, significantly lagging behind the comparable value of the previous year (€27.7 million) due to the capitalized claim for the payment of a corporation tax credit from the previous year of €2.3 million.

Order income of the technology group amounted to €167.5 million. This corresponds to an increase by 3.7% compared to previous year’s value of €161.5 million. While the areas SmartID, Traceability and Precision Parts & Systems could partially show a significant growth, order income of Semiconductor Related Products dropped behind the comparable previous year’s value by 8.7%. In the same period order backlog dropped from €79.2 million to €73.0 million.