MEXICO CITY — KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH enjoyed its best-ever year in Mexico in 2012 in sales terms, according to Héctor Moreno, managing director of the Munich-based company's Mexican subsidiary.

While declining to go into detail, he told reporters at the Plastimagen México trade show on March 12 that sales of new presses in the country totaled $350 million last year and KraussMaffei's share was 10-12 percent.

In an English-language news release, KraussMaffei referred to the "impressive success story in Mexico," where the subsidiary, KraussMaffei de México S de RL de CV, was established in 1999.

According to a company source, Mexico now ranks as KraussMaffei's third most lucrative market for injection molding presses, after the United States and Germany.

In Mexico, 40-50 percent of the company's business is with the automotive industry, with the packaging, construction and electronics and home products sectors also figuring prominently, according to Moreno.

At Plastimagen in Mexico City, KraussMaffei demonstrated live a GX 450-4300 press, which produces disposable spoons with a 32-cavity mold.

"Our customers are primarily interested in the modular automation cells with linear and industrial robots in different configurations, as well as in the efficient variants of the GX series, which are ideally suited to the production of free falling packaging/logistics parts and applications in the consumer goods sector," Moreno said in a separate news release.

Among the staff on the KraussMaffei stand at Plastimagen was Imre Szerdahelyi, head of corporate communication and marketing of the KraussMaffei Group, indicating the importance KraussMaffei, which also markets extrusion and reaction process technologies in Mexico, is giving to Latin America.

In August 2011, KM had said that the company's sales of new injection molding machinery in Mexico in the first seven months of that year totaled roughly $22 million, slightly up on 2010.