Wolfson prowling for new business

Published on Saturday 7 June 2008 14:29

WOLFSON Microelectronics boss Dave Shrigley claims the Edinburgh firm is poised to tap into a £1.5bn market despite losing its largest customer, Apple, earlier this year.

Shrigley reassured investors that its new strategy and recent acquisitions will lead to double digit growth over the next few years even though it lost out on a contract to supply the next generation of Apple products.

Shrigley said the company's 'audio plus' strategy, which will see it branch out into several new areas, including manufacturing devices to increase battery running time, will triple its potential market.

With a number of products expected to launch later this year, Shrigley estimates the value of the market Wolfson now faces is close to $3bn (1.5bn). This has also been bolstered by its acquisition of Sonaptic and Scottish electronics start-up, Oligon, in the first half of 2007.

Shrigley said efforts to grow the business, a spin-off from the University of Edinburgh, beyond just manufacturing audio microchips would help it to withstand the volatility in the electronics market.

"We are going to achieve more predictable growth and moderate some of the inherent variation (in the market)," he said. "We can achieve a longer term double-digit growth on an annual basis with this new strategy. We have basically tripled the available market in front of the company."

The talk of more sustainable growth is intended to reassure investors after Wolfson's share price came within a whisker of an all-time low at 99p in March when news broke of the contract loss from a "major customer". Wolfson is unable to officially name its customers but sources close to the situation confirmed it to be Apple.

The share price has since recovered slightly, closing on Friday at 127.75p, but has struggled to approach anywhere near the levels it reached last summer, when it hit a 52-week high of 339p.

Wolfson was the target of takeover speculation earlier this year after American rival Texas Instruments said it was seeking to take advantage of the "weaker environment" for microchip manufacturers to strengthen its business, but the rumour was quickly dismissed by analysts.

New chairman Mike Ruettgers, who took over from John Carey in March, has since been buying shares in the company. Last month he paid 276,000 for an additional 200,000 Wolfson shares, taking his total holding to 500,000.