LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Solid state battery technology company Ilika said in an update on Wednesday that trading for the financial year just ended was in line with management expectations.

The AIM-traded firm said it expected to announce revenues of about £0.5m for the 12 months ended 30 April, down from £2.3m, and an EBITDA loss of £7m, widening from £2.3m.

Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year totalled £23.4m, up from £9.7m.

On the operational front, Ilika said further to the official opening of its manufacturing facility for Stereax miniature solid-state batteries for industrial wireless sensors and medical implants in December, it had been progressing facility process qualification to the point where it was now "substantially" complete.

As it said in January, product qualification had started, which involved producing initial batches of batteries and testing them against specification.

"Whilst a series of process optimisation cycles have been carried out to date, it is taking longer than previously anticipated to ensure that product batches reproducibly meet specification," the board said in its statement.

"In terms of an update on Ilika's pipeline, the demand from potential customers is now weighted predominantly towards miniature medical device applications.

"The demand for such applications starts with device prototyping, followed by pre-clinical and clinical trials before regulatory approval and mass market roll-out, which has a longer regulatory approval cycle than industrial sensors. Ilika will match production volumes to customer demand."

Ilika said the shift in the weighting of customer demand towards medical device applications, combined with the expectation of optimisation cycles continuing into the second half of the new financial year, meant it now expected commercial sales to start at the end of that period, later than originally anticipated.

A number of the potential applications for Stereax exceeded the capacity of Ilika's facility, which the board said provided longer-term opportunities for partnering and licensing.

Product development of the company's large-format battery for electric vehicles and customer appliances, Goliath, had meanwhile continued to progress to schedule, with significant improvements achieved in energy and power density.

"Ilika continues to explore opportunities for closer collaboration with strategic partners interested in aligning their product roadmaps with Goliath," the board said.

Ilika said it would announce its results for the year ended 30 April on 13 July.

At 1238 BST, shares in Ilika were down 25.26% at 71p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.

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