Operating profit from business operations amounted to €0.5 million and the non-recurring costs totalled to minus €1.9 million, resulting to the operating loss of minus €1.4 million (minus €42.7 million).

The Automotive Business Segment's net sales during January - December 2009 amounted to €61.5 million (€63.3 million) representing a modest decrease of 2.8%. The operating loss reduced to minus €3.8 million (minus €12.1 million). The significant improvement of operating result with slightly reduced turnover reflects the operative profitability improvement measures taken.

The Wireless Business Segment's net sales during January - December 2009 amounted to €91.6 million (€108.6 million), representing a decline of 15.6%. Operating result from business operations amounted to €2.6 million and the non-recurring costs totaled to minus €1.6 million, resulting to the operating profit of €1.0 million (minus €28.5 million). The significant improvement of operating result with lower turnover year-on-year was mainly due to the execution of the earlier announced profitability improvement program.



The total R&D investments during the reporting period were €14.7 million (€37.9 million), equaling 9.6% of the net sales (22.0%). The significant reduction of the R&D investments was mostly due to the change of the business model (and consequent exit from developing own products) in Mobile WiMAX in October 2008 and exit from RFID technology business in February 2009.

EB'S CEO Jukka Harju: "Despite the challenging market environment EB's operating result without non-recurring items from January - December 2009 was slightly positive: €0.5 million (minus €29.1 million in 2008). The Automotive market showed early signs of recovery during the 4Q/09 by generating positive operating result. In the Wireless Segment we succeeded in delivering positive operating result for 2009 despite of slightly negative operating result in 4Q/09. Our primary short term focus remains to be improving profitability further."