Rising in the East: Engel sales growth lifted by Asian demand

Engel has published its annual revenues at Chinaplas, presenting an increase of 8.6 per cent in sales over the last year to €1.36 billion.

The Austrian injection moulder maker was particularly happy to announce the figures at Chinaplas in Guangzhou (Canton), as it revealed customers in China and South Asia drove orders upwards.

Christoph Steger, Chief Sales Officer, said: “Asia grew faster than average in the last fiscal year, primarily due to China. On top of this, we are benefiting from the strong momentum in Southeast Asia.”

Engel is also enjoying rising growth in Europe and America. Whilst he was at Chinaplas, Steger added: “Customised solutions are currently our main driving force for growth. Here, too, Asia, and China grow at above-average rates.”

Engel makes both individual injection moulding machines as well as integrated turnkey so-lutions worldwide, accounting more and more for incoming orders around the globe. Apart from injection moulding machines, robots and other automation solutions, Engel custom builds process technologies, peripheral systems and moulds as well as software solutions for digitalisation and networking.

Steger said: “The global trends in manufacturing and increasing process integration or In-dustry 4.0 mean that we work ever-more intensively with our customers over the complete lifecycle of the machines and manufacturing cells.

“More and more, we are becoming partners in the endeavour of continuous process optimisation. We are implementing our new structures to meet the needs of this development.”

Engel is presenting a range of its smart service solutions at Chinaplas.

Gero Willmeroth, Sales President in Shanghai, added: “Industry 4.0 is rapidly gaining importance here in China. The major international players have been tackling this issue for a long time and have first successes to show. Many other companies still find it difficult to deal with digitalisation and networking. This is where we see our role to support our customers with their very special problems to enable them to make full use of the fourth industrial revolution and to accompany them on their road to becoming smart factories.”

To support continued growth in South Asia, Engel appointed a new service manager for Southeast Asia last month. Dave Lock, a British resident of Thailand, will coordinate Engel service teams across Southeast Asia at its Bangkok hub.

Steger said: “The new structure has already produced successes, as we have been able to strengthen our position in Southeast Asia further in the last months.”

The Bangkok hub is to supply customers with spare parts. The new spare-parts store start-ed work in May. “We now have spare parts worth €8 million in stock on site in Southeast Asia. “We can deliver stock parts to the important industrial centres of the ASEAN region within 24 hours.” In the past, spare parts for Southeast Asia came mainly from China. The new concept of a Free Trade Warehouse Zone has eliminated trade barriers in operational business.