Important advancements have been made with the market traction of Transense’s iTrack II mining tyre monitoring systems, which come under its Translogik division. The number of mine haul trucks fitted with the TPMS system increased during the year 2018 by more than 50% to 396, with annualised revenues at the end of the year exceeding £1.2 million covering installations in four countries across three continents. Since the year end, the total number of mine haul trucks fitted or agreed to be fitted with iTrack now exceeds 500.

In February 2019, an initial order for 50 iTrack II units was received from Bridgestone Corporation, Japan for installation in mines in North America. “Bridgestone are a leading supplier of tyres to the mining off-the-road (OTR) marketplace and their decision to offer the iTrack system is a testament to the capabilities of Translogik and the iTrack system. More recently in August 2019, the company entered into a joint collaboration agreement with Bridgestone in respect of the iTrack II system and its future generations for an initial 18-month period with ability to extend. Based on this joint collaboration agreement, Bridgestone has agreed to offer the iTrack system exclusively as a mining tyre monitoring system for tyres 57 in and above for its OTR customers. In addition, the company has agreed that it will not contract with any other tyre manufacturer for the provision of the iTrack system for tyres 57 in and above for the term of the agreement, nor will it for a period of six months have discussions with any other party in relation to any transaction of a merger, acquisition or joint venture nature in respect of its iTrack business.”

The 500 units figure includes 25 units being added at BHP Billiton Mitsui Coal’s South Walker Creek mine in Australia. In other developments, tyre management major Kal Tire has become a reseller for iTrack in Africa, and in August 2019 won a contract to supply 85 iTrack II mining tyre monitoring systems for haul trucks into a large multi-national mining company operating in Mozambique. The selection of the iTrack system was the outcome of a competitive trial between iTrack and a number of other TPMS systems with the end user concluding that iTrack was the best overall solution, satisfying both Kal Tire, and the end user’s very specific operational and information reporting requirements. Kal Tire has a large installed customer base throughout Africa and will be seeking to introduce additional iTrack systems into a number of their current and future on-site service operations.

Sales of tyre tread depth probes reduced by 46% to £0.45 million (2018: £0.84 million). This followed a year of particularly strong growth in 2017/18, when the probe was selected by Goodyear USA for their new tyre management system called ‘Tire Optix’ which incorporates the Translogik tyre probe. “The take up rate has been somewhat slower than we had anticipated. Our probes are also specified for use in Bridgestone’s corresponding ‘Toolbox’ and ‘Total Tyre Care’ systems as well as Continental’s ‘Fleetfox’ system, underpinning our belief that they represent an industry standard. It is likely that the revenue reduction during the year was partly a result of reduced marketing effort, especially on-line. We have recently recommenced advertising in this way, and are beginning to see a corresponding increase in sales orders, which is encouraging.”