Cyan suffers Indian delay but eyes imminent close

Wireless controls specialist Cyan's revenues shrank by almost a third last year but the company trimmed losses and said a 'transformational' contract in India was nearing completion.

The Aim outfit, whose wireless solutions are being used by a number of utility meter companies to create 'smart meters', said the public tender process with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) was now at an advanced stage with all technical evaluations having been completed.

Executive Chairman John Cronin, who joined in March 2012, said he was disappointed not to have been able to announce the award of the TNEB tender to Cyan's meter manufacturer partners.

The company said the delay to the announcement of the tender contract was one of the reasons that the fulfilment of a $1m order announced in 2012 would be pushed back to 2013.

With the strategic decision to focus on smart metering in India, lighting revenues in China declined, leading to annual revenues falling 31% to £0.3m. Operating losses were cut to £3.1m from £3.6m the year before.

Cyan has not revealed all the names of its four manufacturer partners in the TNEB tender for 1.5m replacement meters, and it is thought that its technology is being used by most if not all of the companies involved in the process as the only means of guaranteeing the tender's stipulated inter-operability between different meters.

Cronin said: "our meter manufacturer partners are very well placed to be awarded this tender, which will then in turn give them a strong position for the second and larger tender, that we understand will follow on shortly afterwards."

The initial tender for 1.5m utility meters is the first part of an overall program to install or replace 18m meters.

Cronin added that the award of the TNEB tender to Cyan's partners "will be transformational in terms of our competitive position in the Indian metering market as well as putting Cyan on a solid financial foundation".

Cyan has a number of other smart metering opportunities in India with strategic partners in several meter manufacturers and system integrators.

Since December 2011 Cyan has raised £3.8m and had £1.6m cash in the bank at the year end before it raised a further £1m gross in April 2013 to further strengthen balance sheet and fund continued growth.

Shares in Cyan were down 6% to 0.53p at 12:45 on Friday.

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