Mobotix Growth Stalls Again

For the second quarter in the last year, Mobotix's growth has gone flat. Worse, the company missed badly on its own revenue goals set at the beginning of their fiscal year. However, the company remains irrationally bullish, especially with its continued expansion into the home automation market. Inside this note, we dig into the financial details and competitive positioning.

Key Metrics

From their 2012 fiscal report:

• Revenue growth for the year was 11.5% year over year
• However, their year ended even poorer with Q3 2012 growth ~0% year over year
• The miss was huge considering their January 2012 guidance of revenues to grow 30 to 35% this year

Mobotix blamed it on European economic conditions:

"[Revenue growth] was particularly affected by the debt crisis in Europe. The slow macroeconomic growth that has been seen over the last few quarters in nearly all European countries has now intensified, and a continued recessionary trend appears very probably in the short to medium trend."

Growth varied significantly geographically. Revenue was down 3.7% in Europe, excluding Germany. However, in Germany and the US revenue growth was both up ~22%. German growth was impressive and above recent pace. However, US growth rate continued to decline.

Mobotix New Developments

Home automation is the great hope for Mobotix. Building on the T24 video door station [link no longer available], Mobotix highlighted three upcoming products:

• MxDisplay for homeowners to see who's at the door and let them in (see picture of it in action)
• Doorbell module
• iPhone/iPad app that "provides notifications when someone rings the doorbell, enables two-way communication with visitors and can remotely open the door. It is also possible to retrieve voice mailbox messages, live images and recordings from all integrated Door Stations and cameras."

The good news is that they are filling out their home automation offering. The bad is that it is of little use to their core market of professional surveillance users.

Mobotix's main release this year was the S14, a nice but niche product that unfortunately Axis matched just months later with their P12.

Competitive Challenges

Mobotix's competitive positioning continues to deteriorate. Outside of a massive change in strategy, their only hope is that home automation becomes a huge business. With continued limited release in the core security market and a steadfast refusal to adopt common security protocols (like H.264 and ONVIF), Mobotix is increasingly isolated and marginalized from the rest of the industry.