January 21, 2008 - IFE solutions provider IMS has secured an order for its handhelds from a fourth US major airline – the Californian company already supplies American, Northwest and US Airways – and expects to announce a 25 per cent growth in revenues for its 2007 financial year. Such a result would make the period IMS’ third consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth.

“We ended the year with an order from another US major for a large number of portable media players,” says IMS chairman Joe Renton. “The resulting revenues will get our 2008 books off to a great start.” The new customer is expected to start flying the IMS handhelds as soon as next month.

IMS can look back on a year in which it not only emerged as clearly the most important handheld supplier to US air transport but also moved into two new markets – corporate/VIP aviation and car rentals. The company secured deals covering a range of products and services with Hamburg-based completions and cabin systems provider Lufthansa Technik and car rentals giant Hertz. 

It also continued to support AirCell, Boeing and Thales with systems and software development work. Thales selected IMS’ portables as a solution for those of its embedded IFE customers who also need a complementary handheld capability, along with the company’s existing portable content loading technology. In the coming 12 months the two companies will work together on development of a WiMAX-based wireless content delivery infrastructure.

IMS says that last year it supplied handhelds to ten new airline customers – they included Northwest, US Airways, Royal Jordanian, TAM, Varig, Sonair and Oasis Hong Kong, as well as the unnamed US major – and delivered additional equipment to existing customers American, Eos and LOT.
 
The end of the year saw a total of 153 American Airlines, British Airways and Virgin America aircraft flying with IMS’ Terminal Data Loader installed, with at least another 212 due to be equipped this year and next.

“We believe our ability to provide not just portable players but also complete content supply and management services, infrastructure and applications will be even more important this year,” says Renton. “The portables market is no longer one of low-hanging fruit, but an increasingly sophisticated arena in which providers must support the full range of services. We foresee another year of double-digit revenue growth, much of it derived from new products to be announced soon. Our balance sheet is strong and we will continue to investment in R&D and expand into new markets.”