The leader of Polish automotive spare parts distribution market will increase its revenue this year by several percent and will close the year with over 2.3 billion PLN in sales revenue. For Inter Cars it will be another year with a growth recorded in two digits.
- RThe reality exceeded our expectations – we are constantly increasing our share of the market where we are present – says Robert Kierzek, CEO of joints stock company. He explains that such a dynamic growth was caused by e.g. putting stronger emphasis on development of sales of goods which are not included in basic product range, such as tyres, engine oils or batteries.
CEO of Inter Cars supposes that a weak ling of the Group – semitrailer manufacturer, Feber – will also become profitable after 2011. This year probably it will not be in plus. The mission of repairing the company was given to Witold Kmieciak. - Situation on semitrailer market is improving, the demand is growing – says CEO of Inter Cars.
Interview with ROBERT KIERZEK, CEO of Inter Cars
After getting above the border of 2 billion of consolidated sales revenue in 2009, Krzysztof Oleksowicz, Co-Founder of Inter Cars, was calming the market, saying that in 2010 the increase will rather not be expressed in a two-digit number. After nine months the company recorded 1.76 billion PLN of consolidated sales revenue, 15% more than in the same period of 2009. r.
The task for 2012 was to clean and order our business, looking more carefully at the costs, that is why being careful we assumed that sales revenue increase will not be much different from the growth of the market. The reality exceeded our expectations – we are still increasing our market share in the markets where we are present.
If nothing bad happens, the whole year should result in 2.3 billion sales revenue. We also need to notice that increase is caused by bigger sales of goods which were not included in our basic product range till this time.
Could you give us some examples
Talking about Inter Cars, I mean automotive spare parts distributor, mostly mechanical ones, mostly for passenger cars. Now we are strongly developing sales of goods which are connected with engine electronics. We are trying to develop in different market segments, such as garage equipment, tyres, car accessories, batteries. Also very promising is sales of automotive oils. We are trying to develop distribution chain and motorcycle servicing garages – we are an exclusive distributor of Triumph brand.
As a part of its expansion abroad, is Inter Cars thinking about entering new markets?
We want to develop our distribution chain in Baltic countries. For over three months now we have been present in Lithuania, now it is time for Latvia. We want to get stronger in Southern Europe and we are planning development of infrastructure to do it, i.e. opening a large warehouse in Romania, in order to satisfy the demand on that part of the continent.
The weakest link of the group seems to be Feber, manufacturer of semitrailers. Is there any chance that 2010 will not be closed by the company with a loss?
I am afraid that it is not possible. We think that IV quarter of this year the company will close with a profit, compensating some part of the loss from previous quarters and recording a result close to zero. We have hope in our new manager, Witold Kmieciak, who has worked in the industry for many years. We gave him the task of cleaning in Feber, building the company again, optimizing production processes. On one hand we are considering widening our offer – we have already introduced a line of cheaper semitrailers, on the other hand we need to sell our stocks, that the company gathered in 2008, not being aware at that time of a coming market slowdown. The situation in the market starts changing positively for the manufacturers. Not long ago we were facing too big supply of the products, which forced all producers to cut prices, very often even below the cost of manufacturing. Now the demand is growing, sometimes even above the supply, this means that prices and terms of realization of orders are also better.
A year ago Inter Cars concluded a contract with a consortium of banks for 480 million PLN credit. Not long ago the Company informed about earlier repayment of 200 million PLN of the debt. Does this mean that demand for circulating capital is lower?
We managed to improve effectiveness of stock management, and this let us limit the cost of managing and keeping it. Thanks to earlier repayment, financial costs of the Company are decreased, especially because at this fact we have negotiated more favourable conditions of serving the remaining part of the credit.
POver a year ago Inter Cars launched Internet platform Motointegrator, which is supposed to be not only an e-shop, but also a place, where the driver can buy spare parts and order their assembly in a car garage convenient for the driver. Did this project have any result on increase of sales revenue? Analysing company’s reports we can only consider that it influenced the increase of costs of Inter Cars
Motointegrator, like each project which is in the phase of implementing it, is generating additional cost. They are not big costs, around several million for the whole year, including the cost of marketing campaigns. We are happy with its development, we have several thousand registered users, and the number is growing systematically.
We are not expecting that within several months Motointegrator will bring us additional orders worth tens of millions of PLN, it is a more long-term project. On one hand we want to cement our relations with main buyers of our goods – garages, providing for them a flow of customers, on the other hand we want to build among car users an opinion, that in Inter Cars you can buy all sorts of automotive products and services. Thank you for the interview.
Interview by Błażej Dowgielski
Parkiet DZ. / Nr 281
back