Turnover surpasses £200m at manufacturer Acorn Stairlifts

Acorn Stairlifts, the West Yorkshire-based manufacturer, has topped the £200m-turnover mark for the very first time.

For the year ending September 30th, the firm made £211.8m which is up by 19.5% on the £177.2m it made the previous year.

Acorn Stairlifts also reported a record profit after tax of more than £17.1m, up from £16.6m in 2016.

Although Acorn manufactures all its stairlifts in the UK, with two factories in West Yorkshire and another in Scotland, the majority are sold overseas.

The latest figures show that non-UK sales accounted for 70.9% of its revenue in 2017, up from 67.7% the previous year.

The business exports stairlifts to more than 80 countries worldwide. It has wholly-owned subsidiaries operating in Germany, Italy, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and its largest overseas market, North America.

Acorn now employs almost 1,500 people worldwide, with more than 500 working at its head offices and factory at Steeton, near Keighley.

The company manufactures more than 70,000 stairlifts per year at its UK factories, the majority sold direct to the public. It also installs and services its own stairlifts through a network of directly-employed engineers.

Joanne Richardson, Acorn’s Finance Director, said: “This latest set of annual figures is very encouraging, especially breaking through the £200m. barrier in terms of turnover during our 25th anniversary year.

“These results reflect Acorn’s ongoing commitment to building growth through investment both here in the UK and in overseas markets for our British-made stairlifts.

“Our performance in North America, where we have worked hard to become the clear market leader for home stairlifts, has been particularly strong during the reporting period, undoubtedly helped by the strength of the dollar.

“Our mission as a growing global business is simply to be ‘the best stairlift provider in the world’ and these figures demonstrate significant progress towards that goal.”