Argus reports strong growth, offshore moves

Homegrown biometrics products developer Argus Solutions has reported 300 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in sales for the first quarter of the 2005-06 financial year.

At its annual general meeting in Sydney on 27 October, Argus chief executive Bruce Lyman told shareholders the young company had grown 300 percent in the first quarter of the new fiscal year.

The Sydney-based company had achieved several milestones which positioned it well for the second half of this year.

"We concluded our product development and responded to demand for multi-modal solutions (iris, face and fingerprints) for identity management. Our capability to satisfy this demand makes us unique in the Asia-Pacific," Lyman said.

He said Argus had also set up a sales base in Singapore by acquiring ImageWare Systems (IWS) in that country.

"The deal included exclusive distribution rights in the region for IWS products, allowing us to address multimodal opportunities in law enforcement and health markets," Lyman said.

The IWS deal also gave Argus contracts in Singapore and an entrance point to Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. IWS had been selling products in those countries, he said.

"It also set the framework for our market penetration in the US, with IWS to support the establishment of our sales force in the US," Lyman said.

IWS had five domestic sales offices in the US, Canada and South America. Argus was already moving to sell its own products via those offices, he said.

Lyman said Argus Solutions had achieved sales in every segment it had targeted so far in 2005 and was expanding into new markets.

"Through our partner reseller arrangements, we have increased our sales reach while rotecting our margins," Lyman said.

Argus has proprietary iris recognition software and facial recognition technology. The company sells packaged solutions to the military, government departments and blue chip companies wanting identity management and to control data access.