Mills CNC (www.millscnc.co.uk), the exclusive distributor of Doosan machine tools in the UK and Ireland, has reported stronger than expected results in the third quarter (July to September), with 95 machines sold.

With trading conditions in the machine tool sector widely acknowledged to be ‘tough’ and ‘challenging’, Mills’ latest results — while not necessarily heralding a return to the halcyon days of 2012-2014 — have been welcomed by the company and are, according to managing director Kevin Gilbert, “testament to all the effort, dedication and hard work undertaken by the Mills team”.

The results show a significant increase in the number of large-capacity machines sold in the three-month period; these included large Puma lathes and vertical turning lathes, big box-guideway horizontal and vertical machining centres, the Doosan DBC series of large boring machines, and the Doosan BM series of double-column milling machines.

Mr Gilbert said that explaining the sizeable and sustained surge in Mills’ sales in the quarter was not straightforward, as there were a number of factors at play: “We recently introduced a range of DNM vertical machining centres equipped with Siemens controls, which enabled us to penetrate a market that previously wasn’t open to us.

"Other new-machine introductions, including our latest Lynx 2100 lathe series and our DNM 4500/5700/6700 three-axis vertical machines, had an impact on sales during the quarter, following their successful launches at MACH 2016.

“Our third-quarter results are fantastic, but there is no room for complacency. We are continuing to strengthen our after-sales services and recently introduced our latest Smart Options five-year warranties on Doosan multi-tasking machines.”