DroneShield share price soars 12% on European order

The DroneShield Ltd (ASX: DRO) share price soared by as much as 26% earlier this morning after announcing it had received an order from a European Ministry of Defence customer. The DroneShield share price has since retreated and is currently up by 12.90% to 12 cents per share.

The group is a worldwide leader in drone security technology. It seeks to respond to the growing issue of drones used for unethical purposes. 

What did the company announce?

The company announced an order for its RadarZero portable counterdrone system from a significant European military force.

According to the company, the $100,000 in sales proceeds is an order for evaluation. It’s expected this will lead to additional deployment. However, the sale is subject to pending relevant export approvals. 

DroneShield CEO, Oleg Vornik, commented:

The importance of this sale is several-fold. First, this is our first order from this European military. Secondly, this is the first sale of radar-only fixed site system powered by DroneShieldComplete, demonstrating the modularity of our offering. DroneShield is both a sensor manufacturer and an integrator, with the customer having ability to add further sensor loads to acquired system, which DroneShieldComplete supports.

The DroneShieldComplete command-and-control system is a user interface with a rich reporting functionality of drone threats. Additionally, the RadarZero enables detection and tracking of enemy drones.

Other recent updates

Today’s news follows an announcement yesterday informing the market the company had been awarded a United States Air Force contract. The amount of the contract is approximately US$200,000.

On 22 July 2020, DroneShield released its quarterly report for the period ended 30 June 2020. In the report, the company stated cash inflows from customers and grants were approximately $2.1 million, which represented a quarterly record. 

The report also noted a substantial increase in US government business and confirmed the company was working towards executing a $70–$85 million Middle Eastern bid. It was also the first approximate breakeven quarter for the company. DroneShield also revealed it has won a four-year framework agreement to supply European Union police forces with DroneGun Tactical. 

The company’s order book is approximately $3.4 million and it has a high conviction pipeline of approximately $85 million. Furthermore, the company could benefit further from Australia’s increased defence budget spend of approximately $270 billion as announced by the Prime Minister on 30 June 2020, after already receiving several orders from the Department of Defence.

About the DroneShield share price  

The DroneShield share price is currently up by 12.90% to 12 cents per share at the time of writing, however, remains 28% down on this time last year.