Q2 Revenue Growth for Eye Tracking Firm Tobii

Sweden-based eye tracking tech firm Tobii has announced results for the second quarter of the year, with organic revenue growth of 5% to SEK 185m ($US 17.8m), but EBIT still negative and little changed at SEK -48m (-50m a year earlier).

The company is smaller than it was three years ago, having both sold off its Smartbox business and spun off its Dynavox arm the same year. Dynavox, which provides communication apps, speech generating devices and eye trackers for people with disabilities, was the larger part of the company and has recently reported operating profits, something which still eludes its former sister company. Revenue for the combined entity in Q2 2020 was SEK 332m and Dynavox's revenue alone in Q2 2023 was SEK 381m.

Tobii CEO Anand Srivatsa (pictured) pointed to the company's first win in the automotive driver monitoring systems (DMS) design area, the firm having been recently selected by the world's largest automotive Tier-1 supplier based in Germany to deliver its software for DMS for a European OEM; and to three additional design wins for vision healthcare solutions using its Tobii Ocumen XR software. Srivatsa comments: 'The second quarter showed encouraging signs for most part[s] of our business and I am happy with the progress we are making. Our Product & Solutions segment was the growth engine in the quarter, delivering a solid 31 percent organic growth... The Integrations segment faced a very tough comparison quarter and declined 26 percent organically, which was related to large prepurchase of Sony PS VR2 licenses in Q2 2022. Adjusted for this effect, Integrations exhibited robust organic growth, and the gross margin remained at a high level'.

Srivatsa also expects a surge in interest in the company's specialist area of 'attention computing', following the announcement in June of Apple's new Vision Pro spatial computing platform, which 'leverages eye tracking as a central feature for the entire user interface in the operating system'. He adds: 'The industry momentum in the second quarter gives us confidence that we are on the cusp of a step change in the adoption of this technology. Apple leaning in will drive innovation around content and devices and help grow the ecosystem of attention computing-enabled software across many technology verticals beyond AR and VR'.

The firm, which also noted successes and recognition in ESG and gender equality, is online at www.tobii.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.