Nagra is to reorganise its digital TV activities, selling off its SmarDTV division, and fully integrating Conax.
It comes as the slowdown in the digital TV sector dragged down operating income in continuing operations in 2017 from $113.5 million to $48.1 million including $25.6 million in restructuring costs.
Nagra has already integrated its Conax subsidiary into the main body of its business, acquired from Telenor Broadcast in March 2014.
“This integration enables the Group to deliver a broader end-to-end integrated solution offering, stimulates innovation as well as increases operational synergies between the entities,” the company said in a statement.
It now says it wants to “establish strategic partnerships with best-of-breed set-top box and conditional access module suppliers” including the Group’s SmarDTV subsidiary. Code for a selloff of that part of the company. Arguably, OTT has overtaken the need to develop the conditional access module much further.
In other changes the role of DTV Chief Operating Officer is being split into two positions focusing on sales and marketing on the one hand and on operations on the other hand.
New agreements continue, in the United States, as part of Nagra’s new multi-year agreement with the Altice Group, Altice USA selected Nagra Connect and the Nagra OpenTV platform to enable content security and multiscreen experience for Altice One, a new connectivity platform launched in November 2017.
In Spain, NAGRA deployed for Vodafone Spain its security solution, Nagra Connect, to secure Vodafone’s latest-generation set-top box. Vodafone Group and Nagra have been working together in integrating Nagra security solutions into the Vodafone Group TV solution.
