The Dubai-based company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, markets smart phones running the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system from Microsoft, and enjoyed success in recent years with devices supplied by Taiwanese ODM HTC. However, HTC last year began shipping products under its own brand, leading ODM customers like i-Mate to seek alternative suppliers among its competitors.
i-Mate CEO Jim Morrison said his company is using designs from three vendors besides HTC nowadays and in June will launch smart phones of its own design, using suppliers only as contract manufacturers.
It is one of the three new ODMs that is having problems with its manufacturing processes, resulting in an inability to deliver product at the quality and in the quantities required, said Morrison. As a result, i-Mate now expects sales in its fiscal fourth quarter (January-March 2007) to come in at $30m-$40m, down from the $48m in the previous quarter.
Our growth will return as of June when we launch our own-design products, Morrison predicted.
The first i-Mate branded product, the i-mate Smartphone, was launched into the Middle East market in May 2003, and the company is currently present in the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and parts of Europe. It entered the UK and Italian markets in 2004 and in the US in early 2005.
