Ifor Williams Trailers was named as Welsh Exporter of the Year at the Daily Post Wales Achievement Business Awards.

The award was presented to Managing Director John Williams at the glittering ceremony at Venue Cymru in Llandudno.

The event, also attended by other key members of the team at Ifor Williams Trailers, was hosted by television news presenter Nicholas Owen.

Speaking at the event just after receiving the award, John Williams said: "The feeling is fantastic, it is great for the team to be here. Everybody is smiling. We have never put ourselves up for anything like this before and this is an honour for the business.

"To see all these people here tonight, and all the efforts put in by businesses in North Wales it is a great feeling and there is great potential in the area for the future. It is fantastic."

As well as being sold through a network of 50 UK distributors, our trailers are exported all over the world with distributors as far afield as Australia and New Zealand - not to mention the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the West Indies, Japan and Africa.

We have increased sales turnover to mainland Europe by 30 per cent since 2009. At the same time the percentage of sales in mainland Europe as a total of sales increased from 21 per cent in 2009 to 27.5 per cent in 2013.

Sales to Germany have increased by 208 per cent since 2009 and this country will soon be our number one export country.

Peter Nesbitt, our Business Development Manager said: "Within Germany there are a large number of home-grown manufacturers, so gaining sales growth in this mature and highly competitive market is a considerable achievement.

"We were particularly proud when a top German equine magazine judged our horsebox as the best in Europe."

"It came out on top in a tough series of tests as part of a survey conducted by Cavallo, the leading horse magazine.

"We remain second in the French trailer market despite some fierce competition and we have grown to our highest ever market share in Belgium where we are in third position.

"In Holland we are at the highest ever market share and have jumped from eighth to fifth position in the past four years.

"We have has added more than 10 new Distributor outlets to its international network since 2009."

Appropriately, the awards evening came a few weeks after we unveiled three new flagship products at an international launch.

We hosted 150 distributors from across the UK and 20 different countries around the world for the event at the company's headquarters in Cynwyd, in Denbighshire.

It was an opportunity to showcase our first ever horsebox with living accommodation and a large, 24ft long livestock trailer that has a detachable container so it can also be used as flatbed trailer.

The third major launch involved a completely new concept for the trailer specialists. We have designed an innovative mobile unit called business inabox for businesses that need to be able to set up shop in different places.

The trio of products represent three new areas of business for Ifor Williams Trailers which required new engineering skills and investment in new machinery.

 

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News » Top export award for Ifor Williams Trailers