As March drew to a close,
XYZ Machine Tools recorded its best ever month, with a sales order intake of £3.4 million. This figure was a pleasant surprise as with
MACH just around the corner, it was assumed that customers would wait to make a purchase at the long-awaited return of the national exhibition.
Nigel Atherton, XYZ Machine Tools managing director, said: “We had little idea of how
MACH 2022 would go, with people still anxious about Covid-19 and the level of sales in March made us think that attendance at the show may be poor, with people ordering machines instead of visiting the show.
“How wrong we were! From day one of
MACH our stand was busy and the level of enquiries, and new orders resulting from the week are very encouraging and indicate that April will be an even better month than March.”
By the end of the exhibition XYZ had recorded almost 500 leads, 100 of which were described as ‘hot’. Out of these, 32 have already placed orders, while another 192 customers have indicated that intend to place an order in the next two-three months, with a further 162 suggesting a six-month lag to placing an order.
New orders that can be directly attributed to
MACH 2022 currently stand at 37 machines from 32 customers, made up of a mix of three manual machines, 20 ProtoTRAK-controlled mills and lathes, and 14 Siemens-controlled machines, a mix of vertical machining centres, turning centres and five-axis machining centres. The value of these sales is in excess of £2.4 million.
Mr Atherton concluded: “With these sales and ongoing negotiations, we are extremely happy with our attendance at
MACH and a bonus was that even with our existing database of engineering companies, which extends to over 20,000 names, we still managed to have conversations with 32 companies that we hadn’t come across before. Also reassuring is that our current level of business is exceeding pre-Covid-19 levels and there is little sign of buying confidence slowing down.”