Customer re-investment has knock-on-effect as Domino posts record sales

The company, who serves the personal care industry with printing and marking for cartons, flexible packs and outer cases, posted sales figures of £300m (€353m) for the first time ever.

Chairman, Peter Byrom, commented "In improved economic conditions the Group has generated an increase in sales of 17 per cent of which 16 per cent is underlying growth in our core business and 1 per cent is attributable to acquisitions made in 2009.”​

Success of new technologies​

Printer revenues increased by 24 per cent with revenues in Domino’s three newer technologies - print and apply labelling machinery, thermal transfer overprinting and thermal ink jet - all utilised in the personal care industry, growing by over 35 per cent.

Revenues also increased across all geographies reflecting the improved global market conditions, according to Domino.

The strongest growth was in the Middle East, Asia and South America as Domino felt the pricing environment had remained relatively stable in these markets, although there had been a small downward movement in average selling prices across the business which it says reflected the broader mix of products and technologies it now sells.

"Sales growth has been achieved in all geographic regions and across the full product range with strongest growth in the newly acquired product technologies,” ​commented Byrom.

"The results for the year reflect the benefits from actions taken in 2009 to consolidate our operations and restructure the Group. Gross margins rose from 46.4 per cent to 49.7 per cent and operating returns increased to 18.2 per cent.”​

Heavy investment in R&D​

The biggest increase in investment in the year was in Research and Development costs, which grew by 36 per cent. Domino attributed this growth to its investment in additional hardware engineers and technicians, investment in chemists to strengthen its fluids business and substantial costs incurred during the year on materials, prototypes and equipment used in the development of our new product range.

The first output from this increase in investment has been a new range of primary package coding and marking printers, all utilising the Laser, Continuous and Thermal platforms used in the cosmetics industry.

The company was also keen to announce that it expects that the increased level of R&D costs will be maintained during 2011 as it builds out its new platform further.

"The first output from this investment was the launch of a new range of primary package coding equipment at Salon d'Emballage, an exhibition in France in November 2010. This innovative product range will be introduced across our entire sales network during the early part of 2011,”​ explained Byrom.

Furthermore, the UK-headquartered printers confirmed its projection of developing into, what it terms as the ‘fastest-growing’ regions of the world, such as China, India, South America and Eastern Europe, in 2011, but also highlighted economic concern with the rest of the European region.