Maritime surveillance company SRT Marine Systems plc has achieved a 273 per cent year-on-year increase in revenues to £30.5 million in the year to March, and a net profit of about £100,000.

The annual report filed with the Bermuda Stock Exchange comes as the British company, a global provider of maritime surveillance, monitoring and management systems, released a half-year trading update to September 30 forecasting a six-month pre-tax loss of £4.5 million.

It sent the stock price down some 9 per cent Friday, as the company forecast this year’s first-half revenue of £5.5 million, and improvements due to their forward contract order book.

The group’s large anticipated jump later in the year relates to their £160 million forward contract order book.

Their systems enable national coast guards and fishing ministries to detect illegal and suspicious activities, including smuggling, terrorism and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

It allows for the management of national fishing fleets, tracks and manages fish catches and landings with fully integrated catch reporting with full action mission control functionality.

The chairman’s statement in the annual report discussed how they entered the new year with improved target markets, enabling SRT to benefit from accumulated investments in technologies, products and customers over many years.

They entered the new financial year with a £160 million forward order book and substantial new prospects in the pipeline, worth an estimated £1.4 billion.

The growth is driven, the company said, by the increasing desire of national agencies to have effective maritime surveillance and intelligence in line with what has become the norm in air traffic control.

Of particular note is the SRT-MDA System, a flexible and scalable integrated surveillance system solution that can be configured for either coastguard or fisheries use.

Chairman Kevin Finn stated in his annual report: “After many years of continuous development, it offers an extensive range of innovative functionalities and capabilities that deliver enhanced maritime domain awareness.

“I am pleased to report that our development and product team have continued to enhance existing functionalities and introduce new capabilities.

“Of particular note is our focus on multi-sensor and multi-platform network integration, data fusion, and management and intelligent analytics in the area of automated vessel detection and identification, along with specialist fisheries functionalities, such as aquatic modelling and electronic catch reporting and auditing.

“This continuous development of the SRT-MDA System falls to our expanding development team, which we have carefully built over many years and today combines a rare blend of scale, talent and experience.”

A key focus in the company transceivers has been the development of the Nexus VHF/Automatic Identification System product, moving SRT into the voice communications segment of the leisure and commercial marine electronics market, with much greater volumes than data-only AIS, due to its greater maturity.

Mr Finn noted: “Nexus is a significant investment for SRT and the project is now in its third year, with the expectation that it will start commercial shipments in early 2024.

“In 2023, we decided to delay the commencement of shipping by approximately up to nine months to allow for further testing. This decision was made in the context of our global reputation for excellence and wishing to enter this new segment with a truly innovative product that matches our history of reliable and trustworthy products.

“Nexus will therefore not contribute material revenues during the coming financial year, but we do expect it to make an impact thereafter.”