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Gateshead's Sevcon in 'bullish' mood following 38% Q1 sales rise

Electronics manufacturer Sevcon has announced a 38% increase in first quarter sales although the Gateshead firm is making a loss following recent investments.

Launched on the Team Valley over 50 years ago, and now listed on NASDAQ, the business engineers motor controllers for electric and hybrid vehicles from its North East HQ.

Reporting a revenue increase to $12.5m (£10m) for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, up from $9.1m (£7.3m) for the same period last year, Sevcon’s sales were further boosted by a $5.2m (£4.2m) windfall from its acquisition of Italian battery charging company Bassi.

The company did, however, reveal a loss of $2.4m (£1.9m) for the first quarter, compared with a profit of $180,000 (£144,000) in the first quarter last year.

Nevertheless the company remains ‘bullish’ in outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, highlighting a reported $400m (£320m) pipeline as cause for much optimism.

Matt Boyle, Chief Executive Officer, revealed: “We are excited by the confidence that an increasing number of on-road OEMs are placing in our solutions, and we look forward to meeting the many milestones we have before us in 2017.

“As we look even further out, our project pipeline and the market demand for electrification solutions provides us with significant opportunity for growth.

“We remain very bullish about our prospects this year. While we expect challenging conditions in the industrial markets in the near-term, we expect to see further improvement in our on-road business as a result of our strong project pipeline.

Mr Boyle added: “The operating loss reflects our significant investment in both engineering and sales and marketing personnel to capitalise on our strong and expanding on-road project pipeline. Production revenues from these programs are expected to start in 2017-2018.”

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