In its latest update on sales of its new line of AXON on-body wearable video cameras for police officers, TASER International (AXON -0.74%) reported Tuesday that the London Metropolitan Police Service has signed up to run a yearlong "proof of concept pilot" project with the technology. The London Met will equip officers with 500 units of TASER's AXON on-officer cameras and sign up for EVIDENCE.com contracts to store the video created by the cameras as they are used.
TASER said in a press release the project will begin "soon," rolling out across nine London boroughs, and will aim to test the usefulness of body-worn video in London.
TASER described its Axon camera lines (which include the AXONflex and the AXONbody) in the press release: "These small, yet highly visible cameras, powered by a pocketsize battery pack, can attach securely to sunglasses, a cap, a shirt collar, or a head mount and, when recording, capture a wide-angle, full-color view of what an officer is facing. The video automatically uploads to EVIDENCE.com, a web-based computerized storage and management system, where it can be easily accessed for review."
Discussing the news, TASER International Chief Operating Officer Jeff Kukowski commented in the press release: "We're thrilled that one of the leading police agencies in the world has selected EVIDENCE.com to provide them with the technology that is going to help them securely manage their digital evidence from the initial 500 body cameras."
Company CEO Rick Smith, while noting that this project is "the largest known urban pilot of [body-worn video] cameras," pointed out that across the globe, "EVIDENCE.com has been in New Zealand since 2009 and has expanded its data-center deployments on Amazon Web Services to Dublin, Ireland; São Paulo, Brazil; and Sydney, Australia."
No dollar value was announced for the project, but at TASER's usual advertised prices of $299 for AXONbody, these sales appear to represent one-time H1 2014 sales revenue of nearly $150,000 for TASER, plus recurring monthly EVIDENCE.com revenues of perhaps $5,000.
