WELSHPOOL-based sheet metal manufacturer AD Coote & Co has forecast a 250 per cent rise in its export sales in the next three years to about $1.7 million per annum.
The company only moved into the export market in 1996 and is now doing more than 10 per cent of its total business in overseas sales.
Claiming the title as the largest Australian-owned maker of metal lighting columns, its services include floodlighting sports grounds in Brunei, lighting streets with solar power in Mauritius and floodlighting mining workshop yards in Indonesia.
Starting from a house and factory unit in 1968, the firm now operates from a plant in Welshpool with annual sales of $6.5 million and fifty employees.
AD Coote began manufacturing metal lighting columns in 1976 and 70 per cent of its business is now in this field.
AD Coote sales manager Peter Craig said the company’s motto was “the customer is king”.
“I think our most important export marketing move was to set up an interactive web page that offered a complete and detailed catalogue of our products,” he said.
“We’re already getting as many as ten hits a day from around the world and enquiries are increasing by about 30 per cent every six months.”
