Defence and specialist antenna company Alaris Antennas has recorded improved sales in many of the regions where it operates and has made good progress towards concluding an acquisition that will provide it a footprint in the US, Alaris Holdings CEO Jürgen Dresel has told Engineering News Online.

Alaris Holdings, which on Monday changed its name from Poynting Holdings, reported improved sales for subsidiary Alaris Antennas in India and the South-East Asia region, including Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, and growing sales within China and Australia, as well as good prospects in Africa owing to the migration from analogue television broadcasting to digital broadcasting.

“We have a strong drive to diversify geographically, with Europe, Asia and the US being our biggest markets. We are in the final negotiations to acquire US antenna specialist firm Antenna Research Associates (ARA), which would provide us with a footprint in the US, mainly focusing on the lucrative defence market. In the medium term, we are investigating expanding our footprint into Europe.”

Further, Dresel noted that ARA and Alaris Antennas (previously Poynting Defence and Specialised) did not have many similar products and immediate prospects included using existing sales channels to bolster sales for both companies.

There would be product development and engineering benefits for both companies and the link-up would boost the group’s research and development (R&D) capabilities, while production synergies would be examined once Alaris Antennas had a firmer view of demand, he said.

“All our defence products and developments are in-house, which are then sold worldwide, and we retain all the intellectual property. Nothing is manufactured under licence. Further, we have significant capabilities in frequency spectrum monitoring and we are particularly strong in this niche of the market. We are also continuously developing new products for this sector,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dresel noted that the company already had several clients and significant dealings within the South American region, but would investigate what worked best for the expanded group with regard to supporting clients and selling products within the region.

Alaris’ broadcasting division African Union Communications (Aucom), meanwhile, reported good prospects from the digital migration taking place in Africa, which mainly entailed replacing analogue broadcasting equipment with digital broadcasting equipment.

“Aucom is bidding for several tenders from countries within sub-Saharan Africa, and we hope to win a few. Aucom also has a number of projects in the region and has found significant work as a distributor and systems integrator. Particularly, turnkey broadcasting solutions are in demand in Africa.”

Dresel noted that support for clients was expected to improve as the company had more resources to dedicate to its product portfolio and clients and had become more focused, owing to the spinout of other Poynting divisions in the past year, which should enable it to devote more resources to its R&D and client support.