As many others did, the owners of Aberlink Ltd, the largest UK owned Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) manufacturer, worried about the outcome of June's EU referendum and were concerned about the potential implications for future business. Although, since the Brexit vote was taken the Gloucestershire based company has experienced a significant increase in domestic demand for its CMMs, and has also witnessed an even larger rise in its export levels, including a 15% increase in sales into Europe.
Aberlink's extremely positive post Brexit experience reflects the recent encouraging news emanating from the UK manufacturing sector. For example statistics indicate that exports are rising at their fastest rate in more than 2 years and that demand for British manufactured goods has just seen its best month in more than a quarter of a century. Several respected UK manufacturing indices also reflect the current positive mood.
"Earlier this year, we heard several stories about providers of capital equipment to the UK manufacturing sector experiencing a significant decline in business in the run-up to the Brexit vote. The successful April launch and early sales success of our revolutionary Xtreme CMM has helped to insulate us from the worse effects of that period of uncertainty and enabled us to actually increase our year-on-year sales," enthused Chris Davies, Business Development Manager.
"The post Brexit decline in the value of the pound has given a boost to Aberlink CMM sales on two fronts. As our CMMs are now considerably cheaper in the majority of our overseas markets, we are currently enjoying a welcome export boom. Also, as many UK manufacturers are experiencing continuing domestic and flourishing export demands, many are now purchasing Aberlink CMMs to help ensure the quality of their increasing output.
"From our reading of the current situation and projections made by our overseas distributors, we expect our present export sales trend to continue for the remainder of this calendar year. Export sales of new CMMs are expected to be in excess of 75% of total sales for this financial year.
"Although the current value of the pound can cause problems for UK companies who import many elements of their manufactured products, in the current situation, Aberlink's high level of autonomy helps our profitability. For example, not only do we manufacture the vast majority of the components for our CMMs in-house, we also write all of our own software."