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By Ron Coates, 28 September 2004 17:25

NEWS Multimedia company Emblaze says that it will finally take off this year and that turnover will grow six-fold. The cash-rich company said that, after years of losses, it expects to move into operating profit next year.

Eli Reifman, Emblaze CEO, said: "We've spent three-and-a-half years waiting for a break and now the break has come. We can say this with a high degree of confidence. The prediction represents orders and discussions that go back to the beginning of the year that, for accounting reasons, we couldn't put on the balance sheet yet."

Reifman said that all of the company's divisions were forging ahead. Orca, the IPTV specialist, has signed a number of contracts in the Far East, including two very recent ones in India. Emblaze has plans to float the division off on the London AIM market as a separate company.

The company's mobile division has shipped 15,000 customised multimedia handsets and is looking for a Far East factory to buy to meet demand after the end of the year. It is also in discussions with 20 operators aiming to use its 3G software systems in Europe and has signed a deal with Orange Switzerland.

Adamind, Emblaze's transcoding division formed by a joint venture with Philips, is currently used for MMS by 70 operators worldwide and generating substantial royalties. Emblaze claims that it has over 50 per cent of all MMS centre installations globally.

Emblaze launched on the London stock exchange eight years ago but just as the company got into its stride it was crippled by the collapse of the telecoms market.

Reifman said: "It's been a very rough three-and-a-half years but now it's an entirely different ball game."

The company's interim results released today reveal that it still has $222.8m in cash left over from its successful IPO. This doesn't count the $54.2m it is due to get after selling its fabless chips-for-mobiles division in June. Turnover for the half-year was $5m, 117 per cent up on the same period last year.

The company is moving into the defence market with newly formed Emblaze Defence. The division will exploit company technology to sell into the Universal Soldier concept, which sees wired-up soldiers transmitting streaming video of live action back to command centres.