Rapid Technology's objective was to achieve profitability within two years after registering a loss of £1.5 million for the year to June 30th, the finance director, Mr Roger Bannon, said yesterday, after the company's annual general meeting. He said the company would not need to engage in "a great deal of activity" to be profitable. It spent £4.8 million on development costs last year, according to its annual report.

"We are not in the business to lose money. For what we are trying to do, the level of investment has been relatively modest. It has been an ambitious project," he said.

Rapid Technology is listed on the Developing Companies Market in Dublin and London's Alternative Investment Market. Its Irish share price is 74p, while, in London, the price remains at 66p sterling.

The company sub-contracts its production of patented key screen technology to German manufacturers, and is focusing on the marketing of its product range following the launch of its generic "2000" series keyboard.

Almost 4,000 of these had been installed in various point-of-sale applications including supermarkets and dry cleaning businesses. Mr Bannon said there were long lead times between getting an order and converting it into "a top line figure".

"But when it does move, it moves quite significantly . . . The critical thing for us is we have got to convert these products and the customer interest into business and that is the target for the next 12 months," he said. The main markets are the US, Britain and Germany, although Arnotts in Dublin has installed some of the company's products which range in price between $500 (£338) and $1,000.

The new range, which has received international approval certificates, has a more specialised focus on supermarket, financial services and call centre applications.

"The critical thing is getting these new products out into the market," Mr Bannon said.

He was anticipating a good reaction from the market place in the first half of 1999 "in terms of assessing likely volumes for the future". "I would be very disappointed if we were not trading at a reasonable level of activity before the end of 1999," he said.