ABRASIVES INDUSTRY BRACES FOR GROWTH
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 2/1/1998
Like many of their counterparts in other industries, abrasives distributors emerged from 1997 with robust sales and great expectations for the new year. No sales figures for 1997 were available but the Coated Abrasives Manufacturing Institute expected domestic sales of coated abrasives last year to rise a few percentage points over 1996 levels. "There's no reason to believe the same wouldn't hold true for next year,'' says CAMI executive director Charles Stockinger.Many companies project their sales will top 1997 levels and "for some niche markets there may be a boom,'' such as in automotive and other manufacturing machinery, says Jeffrey Wherry, manager of the Grinding Wheel Institute. "There's always uncertainties but indications are the economy should be bubbling along pretty good (this) year,'' Wherry says.
Sales to the aerospace industry in particular should be strong, says James Hanson, director of industrial sales at Norton Co., a Worcester, Ma. manufacturer. He does not foresee a big decline in any major markets but he called abrasives sales to automotive makers "a question mark."
Based on the upward trend of the past few years, distributors who beat their 1996 sales volume clearly enjoyed a great year. According to Industrial Distribution's 51st Annual Survey of Distributor Operations in 1997, nearly 90 percent of abrasives distributors reported an average 16.8 percent increase in sales during 1996 over the previous year, with net profits up an average of 6.3 percent.
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