Brother hits record sales, but profits halve

BROTHER, the printer manufacturer, has announced record UK sales of £107m (2012: £100.8m).
 
It said the 6% rise in annual sales, in the year to the end of March, was achieved by expanding its distribution network and taking a bigger share of the market.

But pre-tax profits nearly halved to £2.6m (2012: £5.4m) which the company said was down to investment and unfavourable exchange rates in the first half.

Phil Jones, who was appointed managing director of Brother UK in April, said: “In a very competitive and challenging market, we achieved solid sales growth thanks to great technology, people and partners.

“Success for any vendor in our sector is determined by the strength of relationships between the company, its distributors, resellers and retail customers. We worked very hard to ensure that our stakeholders were supported and aligned with our growth ambitions.
 
“It was also a year of change. We laid the foundations for the roll out of our solutions business, which is supporting corporate and mid-market companies to drive efficiencies and increase productivity by using our range of technology and services.
 
“The marketplace remains unpredictable, with significant disruption from new technologies and we will continue to keep pace with these changes by staying close to market trends and spending quality time listening to our customers, future and present.”