Headquartered in Milan, Italy, Stonex is a supplier of GNSS receivers and advanced surveying technologies. The company showed off some of its more recent solutions at InterGEO 2024 in Stuttgart.
“We’re still a young company,” said Stonex Business Development Director Ken West. “We started out selling total stations, GPS receivers, your standard positioning and surveying gear, but we’ve expanded and I think we’ve found other areas of business, where we see a growing demand, specifically in 3D positioning and machine control. Our flagship products for the moment, our recent successes, are in the SLAM [simultaneous location and mapping] technologies, in the 3D business.
The Stonex XH120 is the company’s handheld laser scanner based on SLAM technology, The unit enables fast and easy capture of indoor and outdoor 3D models, and it comes at a very competitive price.
West said Stonex is just the right size to serve a rapidly changing market: “We’re very fortunate to be not too big and not too small, so we can change the dynamics or the focus of where we want to go quite easily, quite quickly.” Stonex is owned by Beijing-based UniStrong, but, said West, “We are not a Chinese company. Having Unistrong behind us gives us leverage in purchasing and procuring Chinese products or components, but we are Italian; our products are made in Italy. We have our own assembly, and we can do that on a much lower cost basis compared to some of the bigger players, and that means a lower price point for our customers.”
Hard work pays off
Over the longer term, Stonex is looking to expand into the machine control space. The Stonex STX-DIG is a machine control solution designed for earthmoving machines. It can be installed in most excavators quickly and easily. High-precision motion sensors provide real-time information about the status of the machine, while Android-compatible software enables users to control all phases of excavation and machine movement. Functions include excavator control, precise positioning and guidance and real-time monitoring and tracking.
“As they say, ‘Where there’s muck there’s money’,” said West. “In machine control you’re moving dirt, excavating, digging holes, and that’s where there’s money to be made. It’s hard work but it pays, and it’s a good space for a company with 3D positioning and machine control in its portfolio. We’re attracting a lot of new customers, ones who may not want to play with the big boys, or don’t want to pay big money.”
The Stonex S900 GNSS receiver is still the company’s most successful product. With an advanced, high-accuracy, multi-constellation antenna, a powerful UHF transmitter and GSM 4G modem, the receiver tracks all the present constellations and satellite signals: GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo and QZSS.
“In its first two years, the S900 was made in China,” West said, “but since then we’ve been making it in Italy, and that’s when we started to get the phenomenal growth. Service and support are critical for us. Our customers want to know that we’ll look after them. Some of these other companies may not be here in a few years. We’ll be here.”
