Aurrigo is preparing for a surge in demand for its autonomous baggage handling vehicles as the Coventry-based business posted a jump in sales.
The AIM-listed airside technology company said it was preparing for a 450% year-on-year rise in revenues from its autonomous vehicle division to hit £3m by the end of the year, while the firm scaled up capacity at its UK manufacturing base and eyed opportunities to outsource manufacturing in the US and Asia.
Aurrigo CEO David Keene told UKTN: “We’ve got vehicles out with quite a number of customers now in different locations and we’ve got very healthy enquiry pipeline that’s coming through. So we’re not chasing any business and the market is really proving that the business case is there.
“Our analysis suggests there are more than 600 airports around the world where if we brought in our technology, it would have an effect on the business case. So there’s a massive market globally.”
Aurrigo reported a 26% rise in revenues to £3.9m for the first six months of the year, while pre-tax losses fell by a fifth to £1.6m. Turnover comprised a 60% increase in its autonomous division to £0.8m an a 11% increase in its automotive division to £3.1m.
Aurrigo shares rose 3.7% to 77p.
Keene told UKTN the firm has just opened an office in Cincinnati to support its overseas expansion and had already begun hiring employees. The company is also looking at expanding into Singapore.
“If you want to really crack the American market, you have to really have ‘made in America’ a part of your strategy,” he said.
“We’re also looking is that a possibility where we could have the manufacturing facility where we could increase capacity and obviously use that facility to support the American Market and then we have a lot of interest and discussions going on in Singapore — they’re really interested in talking to us about whether we could we set up a facility there. We’re following in James Dyson’s footsteps.”
Aurrigo’s modelling suggests its autonomous solutions, once fully implemented, provide customers with an estimated return on investment in under three years for a typical 40m+ passenger terminal. This is in addition to increased efficiency and an estimated c.72% reduction in tug carbon emissions.
