Profits surge for Dyson
Profits at Dyson, the company famous for its brightly coloured bag less cleaners, have doubled from £39.6m to £78.2m resulting in a bumper pay packet for founder James Dyson and his wife.
The pair took home £28.9m as the private company’s sales increased fourfold largely due to a boom in American sales.
Sales to 31 December 2004 rose 54 per cent to £426.2m. In addition to its American success, the company added sales in Asia and Australasia almost doubled from £23m to £41m.
The company said that it is now the number one cleaner in Spain, Ireland and Switzerland and was poised for “continental take-off” this year.
James Dyson added: “Two years ago we were exporting one third of our cleaners. Today it’s two-thirds.” The company’s foreign success has been built on the back of inroads into the American market. Three years ago it sold to just one retail outlet in the country, now it sells into a network of 12,000 shops, wielding a 20 per cent share of the American market with sales of £162m.
However, its arch rival Hoover sells three times more machines in America. In Dyson’s largest single market, Britain, the company’s sales inched up one per cent to £180m. The company attributes this slowdown to the fact that Britain is the company’s most mature market — a third of British families now own a Dyson.
The Wilshire-based company also distributed £11m of staff bonuses to boost total pay to £58.5m. The business had almost doubled its research and development spend to £39.3m and increased the number of senior scientists, technicians and engineers who work for the company to 450.
The business said that its increases in market share depended on it making improvements to the range of machines it sells.
Dyson said: “We have a relentless appetite for new and better technology. That’s why we are taking on more and more engineers.”
Dyson is looking for a new advertising agency in America after the business parted company with local agency AOR Patrice Tanaka.
The agency had worked for Dyson over the last three years since the company’s launch in America in 2002, a period of great growth for the business.
Dyson said it expects to announce a replacement by the end of the year.