Seeing Machines inks its first Japanese carmaker deal

Driver monitoring technology company Seeing Machines has been appointed by an existing customer and global automotive tier 1 supplier to deliver its ‘FOVIO’ driver monitoring system (DMS) to a “leading Japanese carmaker”, it announced on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm said the contract, with an initial lifetime value of AUD 21m (£11.84m) and due to start production in 2025, was its first production automotive award in Japan.

It would bring the total number of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) with which Seeing Machines had won business to nine.

Delivery would be via the company's “deeply embedded and accelerated” driver monitoring engine, configured for driver state sensing and targeted at global NCAP and regulatory requirements over a number of additional vehicle models.

Seeing Machines recently expanded its presence in Japan, and was working with a number of tier 1 suppliers and automotive OEMs to secure new opportunities as Japanese carmakers moved to address global NCAP, regulatory, and semi-automated vehicle applications.

“We are delighted to have our first Japanese OEM award and believe that we will continue to be successful in this region as more programs are finalised to meet the shrinking timeframes for safety and regulatory requirements, globally,” said the company’s senior vice-president and general manager of automotive Nick DiFiore.

“We have invested in a seasoned and capable sales and technical support team in Japan, who are developing relationships with key stakeholders across the automotive industry, and this win is an important step for Seeing Machines to become the region's DMS technology supplier of choice.”

DiFiore also credited the company’s factory engineering team for satisfying customer concerns over several technical challenges needed to close on the programme.

“While we are unable to disclose our customer's integration strategy, we continue to prove that Seeing Machines is uniquely positioned to address the increasing need for flexible, and often difficult, camera packaging locations and sightlines required to ease OEM camera packaging burdens and system cost across an array of vehicle models.”

At 1109 BST, shares in Seeing Machines were up 1.76% at 6.92p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.