Annual Report 2019
Report by the Board of Directors
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Market Outlook

Bittium´s customers operate in various industries, each of them having their own industry specific factors driving the demand. A common factor creating demand among the whole customer base is the growing need for higher quality and secure data transfer. Due to the technology competences accrued over time and long history in developing mobile communication solutions, Bittium is in a good position to offer customized solutions for its customers. Over thirty years of experience and extensive competence in measuring of biosignals also act as a basis for medical technology solutions.

The following factors are expected to create demand for Bittium´s products and services in 2020 and beyond:

  • In the defense sector´s tactical communication market, the governments´ defense forces and other authorities need networks that troops, who are more and more constantly on the move, can use for transferring growing amounts of data securely. This creates demand for Bittium Tactical Wireless IP Network (TAC WIN) broadband network and for other Bittium´s IP-based (Internet Protocol) tactical communications solutions, as well as for Bittium´s new tactical communication handheld and vehicle radios that fulfill the needs of data transfer of moving troops or individual soldiers. Bittium continues its efforts to bring its defense market targeted products and services also to the international defense markets and aims to get new international customers for its tactical communication system in 2020. Due to the long sales cycles driven by purchasing programs of national governments, it takes time to receive purchase orders.
  • The use of LTE technology, smartphones and applications continue to increase in special verticals such as public safety creating demand for Bittium Tough Mobile secure LTE smartphone and other customized special terminals based on Bittium´s own product platform. The awareness of mobile security risks is growing and the interest towards secure mobile devices is increasing. The implementation of LTE-based devices in Public Safety markets has been slower than expected due to the delay of the device functionalities required by the authorities and due to the slow progress of the market. The sale of the secure terminal products is expected to develop moderately according to the nature of public safety markets.
  • Using public network connections in portable devices is increasing also in demanding professional use, such as in the public sector. This creates requirements for network connections to be easy to use and secure. The products in the Bittium SafeMove product family enable the ease of use of the devices and security in demanding use.
  • In the mobile telecommunications, the demand for 5G technology development work has stabilized and the implementation of 5G is accelerating in pace. Investments in developing new features continue and the importance of software development in the 5G network development expands. This creates demand for Bittium´s R&D services. There is a wide range of frequencies allocated for the 5G technology thus creating the need to develop multiple products to cover the market and creating demand for R&D services for development of product variants. Also the development of new devices utilizing 5G technology increases the demand for Bittium´s services.
  • As the digitalization evolves, the secure IoT (Internet of Things) has become a significant development area in almost every industry. The increasing need of companies to digitalize their operations, collect data wirelessly and transfer it to the internet and cloud services generate need for Bittium´s services and customized solutions. The new radio systems customized to IoT are being used all over the world and the amount of digitalized devices increase continuously. Along with the 5G technology is being used, there will also be new features in the IoT that enable i.e. remote control of machines. Therefore the integration of different systems and technologies play an important role in enabling the complete digitalization service. To ease and speed up the processing of large data amounts, there are different kinds of learning systems and devices under development that use different kinds of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
  • Changes in the digitalization of the automotive industry and new business models and automation of automotive operations create a need for technological development. Most significant technology trends such as intelligent mobility, self-driving cars, electric cars and connectivity are guiding need for innovative software development. The share of software in cars is increasing in speed and software is becoming a major enabler and a differentiator. The use of Android™ Automotive operating system in the In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems is strongly entering the market. Several carmakers have announced the launch of cars with Android Automotive. Bittium´s more than a decade of experience with the Android operating system and the Google ecosystem combined with security know-how creates good business opportunities for this market.
  • The heart and brain failures are among the most frequent causes of serious complications and recognizing those symptoms early on, based on information gathered by measuring, enables the start of the effective treatment in time. Also the prevention of diseases and health problems are being increasingly invested in. In the healthcare technology market, there is ongoing a significant change in the patient care both inside the hospitals as well as in homecare. The repatriation of patients is being pursued earlier than before which may enable significant cost savings in the healthcare. A perquisite for early repatriation is the enabling of accurate and precise follow-up and measurement in home conditions through remote monitoring. For this purpose Bittium offers its Bittium Faros product family for remote heart monitoring and Bittium BrainStatus for measuring the electrical activity of the brain. One of the growing application areas in the wireless and remote systems is healthcare technology that enables implementing these changes for its part. Remote monitoring and remote diagnostics together with wireless and remote-controllable systems bring effectiveness to the healthcare performance and cut costs as the diagnoses from specialists are available regardless of time and place. Various diagnostic solutions have been introduced to facilitate and speed up the work of physicians. These are for example Bittium´s analytics software in the field of cardiology and neurology.  This enables also new service providers to enter the chain of medical treatment services offering wider availability of medicine, without bargaining the quality of specialists i.e. cardiologists and neurologists.