Tobii Sales Growth Stagnates in Q1

Sweden-based eye-tracking technology firm Tobii AB has reported a slight real terms decline in revenue for the first quarter of 2017.

Q1 group sales of SEK 261m ($US 29.6m) were up 4% in reported terms, but down 1% after adjusting for currency effects - disappointing after real terms growth of 9 percent over the whole of 2016. Gross margin was fairly stable at 71% while operating loss jumped to SEK -56m, from -17m in Q1 2016 - heavy investment in the innovation division Tobii Tech had an impact of SEK -76m on the Group's earnings (Q1 2016 -49m).

CEO Henrik Eskilsson (pictured) said the year to date has seen 'significant investments in product development in all three business units', but conceded that two of the company's three business units saw weaker sales. However the company points to notable advances during the quarter, including the introduction by Acer of the Aspire V17 Nitro, 'the first notebook beyond specialized gaming PCs with integrated Tobii eye tracking'; an R&D collaboration with Valve related to eye tracking in VR; and in April the launch by its Dynavox division of Indi, 'the world's first all-in-one speech tablet for communication', plus new symbol-based communication software Snap. Tobii has also appointed Johan Wilsby as its new CFO, effective June 2017.

The company is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, has more than 750 employees, and is online at www.tobii.com .