Karl Mayer, which has been operating in the field of warp knitting and warp preparation machines in the global textile market since 1937, participated in ITM with its innovations. In line with the customer demands, after ITM 2012, the company, which develops its warp knitting machines appropriate for a broad product segment including, floor coverings, upholstery fabrics, stretch underwear, semi-technical textiles and net curtains, is going to participate in ITMA ASIA CITMA with its new generation machines. Oliver Mathews, Manager for the Warp Knitting Business Unit at Karl Mayer, made special statements to Textil Dunyasi about the works of the company that attracted great interest with HKS 3-M, it exhibited at its booth at ITM. Mathews stated that the company, which has been in the sector since 1937, gives importance to the Turkish market and he underlined that the technologies they develop for the textile and technical textiles, are shaped according to the demands of the customers.
Emphasizing that the Turkish market is very important for them, Mathews remarked that their sales figures in Turkey have reached very good levels. Mathews stated that they will focus their attention on the Turkish market, as they sustained this by participating in ITM. Mathews mentioned the other two fairs they will participate this year and said; “In June, we are going to participate in ITMA Asia, in Shanghai and in December, we will be at INDIA ITME 2012, in India. It is the first time that we show our new HKS 3-M this year and in Istanbul is our first stop in this process. We brought our products in Turkey.”
HKS 3M was Brought in Istanbul but Nov-O-Matic was not
Oliver Mathews underlined that the newly developed machine HKS 3M was for the first time exhibited in Turkey and he added that this machine has been one of the best-selling machines in the recent period. Reminding that HKS has been a best-selling standard machine series for years, Mathews emphasized that they presented the new generation of the machine they developed. Mathews continued by saying; “This new generation machine has the advantage of a greater speed compared to the old version of it, for that reason it offers a high level of efficiency. HKS series 1st generation, was developed towards the end of 1900s, HKS 3M 2 nd generation was introduced with carbon-fiber machine bars in 2007 and we achieved an increase of 25 percent in speed. And now, we managed to increase it by 15 percent,” said Mathews.
Mathews stated that since they had a limited exhibition space at ITM, they could not bring the new Nov-O-Matic 2 Generation to the fair, but they will exhibit it at ITMA ASIA.
Stating that they’ve been observing an increase in demand in the whole clasical textile and technical textile segments, Mathews remarked that Karl Mayer develops its products taking the difference in apparel textile, semi-technical and full-technical textiles into account. Mathews stated that they develop warp knitting technologies in line with the customers’ demands and they adept them according to the demand.
2012 Seems to be More Stable in Sales
Oliver Mathews made evaluations about the sales figures in 2011 and stated that last year, Turkey was one of the most important markets whereas China was the most important one. Mathews added that India, Korea and Taiwan were the other important markets. Making explainations about their market expectations in 2012, Mathews said that it is hard to make a prediction about the whole year but the amount of machine sales is stable for the time being. Mathews continued by saying; “We experienced a perfect period in 2012 and 2011. For that reason, we sold more machines in 2010 and 2011 than the amount we sell in a normal period. If we look at the history of Karl Mayer, we can see that the company reached great sales levels in 2006 and 2007 but it was faced with the global crisis in 2008 and 2009. A decline was observed in our sales in this period of crisis, during when all the sectors and textile manufacturers were affected deeply. However the period of 2010 and 2011 was better for us than 2006 and 2007. On the other hand, we suppose that it is hard for the machinery sales figures of 2012 to reach the last year’s level.”
Demand Continues to Increase in the Turkish Market
Oliver Mathews said that in the first quarter of 2012, they observe a positive trend in the Turkish market and that they expect an increase in the demand thoughout the year. Mathews, who considers it to be a very surprising situation, said; “If we look at the Asian market, we see that the demand is lower this year, compared to the period of 2010 and 2011. However, surprisingly enough, an increasing demand is received from Turkey and India.
Mathews remarked that they are still very strong in the Turkish market and that the Asian machinery manufacturers, which have made their names heard in the recent period, are not rivals to the company in this period. Oliver Mathews finished by saying; “We have to be the leader but this is a great responsibility. We exhibit machines for the first time in a Turkish fair after a very long break. We’ve been here alwys but we had a rather small information booth. We showed our trust in this market by participating in the fair with our machines.”
