ID Systems Inc is making headway in getting its wireless solutions onto more forklifts.

The US Postal Service, a core customer, has deployed ID Systems' wireless forklift vehicle management technology in more than 110 sites, says Jeffrey Jagid, ID Systems chairman and chief executive officer.

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc uses the technology at 50 distribution facilities and drug-store operator Walgreen Co at more than a dozen locations.

"Our solutions for controlling, tracking and managing vehicles, such as material handling equipment, airport vehicles and rental cars, continue to offer significant economic benefits for our customers," Jagid says.

ID Systems says it added more than 20 new customers in automotive, consumer packaged goods, government and retail segments during 2008. The customers include Xerox Corp, Colgate-Palmolive Co, a division of Nestlé SA and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. "Most of our new customers were for forklift vehicle management systems," says Greg Smith, vice president of marketing

Dealers of Yale and Hyster brand forklifts from Nacco Industries Inc's materials handling group (NMHG) "played an active role in helping us fill our sales pipeline in 2008, including facilitating a number of new customer orders", Smith notes.

ID Systems is in the process of expanding its relationships with other so-far-unidentified forklift truck original equipment manufacturers (OEM), Smith reports. "We do not have formal corporate marketing agreements with any OEM other than NMHG at this moment, so we cannot go into details, but it is fair to say that we have worked very closely with multiple other OEMs and their dealers; those include OEMs based both in the US and Europe; and a number of new customer orders in 2008 resulted from those other OEM/dealer relationships."

Recently, ID Systems completed a transaction with AeroVironment Inc of Monrovia, California for one of their joint customers. AeroVironment makes and distributes PosiCharge systems for fast-charging batteries.

In a 5 March financial report, ID Systems said it lost USD4.2 million on 2008 sales of USD27.0 million versus a loss of USD7.3 million on 2007 sales of USD17.1 million.

On 6 March, security management and investment banking firm Boenning & Scattergood Inc of West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania downgraded its recommendation on ID Systems' common stock to neutral.

Hackensack-based publicly traded ID Systems has a European business office in Düsseldorf, Germany.