The automotive and packaging sectors will drive the resurgence in injection molding machine sales in Mexico this year, Engel officials said.
“I'm very optimistic about this year,” Alberto Meade, general manager of the Austrian press maker's Mexican subsidiary, Engel de México SA de CV, at Plastimagen México 2010.
“I've seen growth overall [but] automotive and packaging will drive growth,” said Jorge Guerrero, Engel's commercial director in Mexico. He estimates 650 injection molding machines of all sizes are sold in Mexico every year.
“These are not official figures and include Asian machines,” he stressed.
“There's a lot to do in automotive because the past 18 months have been so slow [in the sector] and new technology has to be introduced,” he said.
Guerrero, who has worked for Engel in the country for 21 years, estimates that the company's sales in Mexico this year will top $10 million — 55 percent more than in 2009 — and that in 2011 they will increase by 25 percent to $12.5 million.
However, 2009 was a year that most in the industry would prefer to forget.
According to Meade, Engel is focusing on fully electric machines for the Mexican market “because energy costs in Mexico are very high and ... usually with electric machines you have less energy consumption.”
However, he emphasized that there is still a 50-50 mix between electric and hydraulic presses in Mexico, and Engel offers both.
He said he is excited about the opening in August of Engel's $5.5 million technical center on the outskirts of Querétaro, which he said “will give a lot of confidence to our customers and be proof of our long-term commitment to Mexico.”
Engel, which opened its Mexico subsidiary in 1996, plans to move its Mexico headquarters and 16-strong staff out of Mexico City to the new complex.
It markets machines with clamping forces of 25-5,000 tons in the country, but Guerrero said most of its sales are of machines in the range of 200-600 tons.
Of about 500 presses that Engel has sold in Mexico, according to Guerrero, the largest was 3,500 tons, which a customer in the automotive industry bought three years ago.
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