Big data firm to invest £1.5m in Coleshill expansion

Telematics business Trakm8 is planning to invest £1.5m as part of its growth plans that will see it expand its Coleshill site.

The business has the ambition of having 1m connected devices by the end of 2020 – “that’s an ambition, not a forecast”, said executive chairman John Watkins – which would be four times as many as it currently has.

Trakm8 executive chairman John Watkins

“It will mean a few more people at Coleshill but primarily its about more space for manufacturing.”

Trakm8 is a prominent big data company based in the West Midlands, and it works with a host of household names including the AA, Saint Gobain, Shell, Direct Line Group and Euro Car Parts. It collects data on 3bn miles every year, while its telematics products also include dashboard cameras.

Trakm8 has now completed its exit from non-core Contract Electronics Manufacturing (CEM) activities, which it has been scaling back in recent years.

Trakm8 has been making the transition to a pure telematics provider (Source: Trakm8)

“This year is the year we are out of CEM completely,” said Watkins. “You can see the trend is very positive and it gives us encouragement, and hopefully gives our shareholders encouragement.”

However, its share price fell nearly 10% in early trading on the back of indifferent guidance about its current performance.

AIM-listed Trakm8 revealed that its first-half revenues would be lower than last year, which it blamed on “the termination of CEM contracts and a customer inventory build-up”.

However it insisted that full year revenues would improve, boosted by “considerably better” revenues in the second half driven by new contracts in the insurance sector.

Trakm8’s revenues in the year to March increased 12%, to £30.1m, while its adjusted pre-tax profits more than doubled to £2.8m.

It made cost savings of £2m during the year, with the majority of that reinvested into sales and marketing, focused on its fleet management division.

Watkins added: “Our biggest challenge is to really grow our fleet business. We have invested in sales and marketing ahead of getting the contracts, now we need to deliver on that.”