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From last year's attacks on Saudi Aramco oil facilities to the January strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, drones have been at the centre of some of the world's most significant geopolitical events of the past six months.
Australian counter-drone technology company DroneShield (ASX: DRO) aims to play an important role as drones become more commonplace, not just in military defence but even against civilian drones that can disrupt airspace or provide contraband to inmates in prison.
In the 2019 calendar year DroneShield tripled its revenue to $3.6 million, although an R&D scale-up led to a 21 per cent deepening of its loss to $7.69 million.
The new year is already off to a good start for the Sydney-based company, after announcing today it has received an order of approximately $460,000 from a major agency of the United States government.
The delivery of, and payment for, the order are expected to occur in the second quarter of this year.
This order follows several smaller orders received this quarter from customers such as major government agencies across several countries, in anticipation of larger contract awards.
"We are proud to be at the forefront of assisting Western governments and their allies with their national security requirements," says CEO Oleg Vornik.
"Our US customer for this order has some of the most demanding and complex requirements of any Government agency worldwide.
"Their selection of DroneShield for their counter-UAS requirement is a testament of DroneShield's innovative, industry leading detection and mitigation capabilities."
He adds the company is also actively progressing larger opportunities previously advised to market, and expects "near-term conversion of those opportunities into binding contracts".
In line with the broader market sell-off today, DRO shares were down 4.85 per cent at $0.157 at 11:10am AEDT.
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