Irish PC assembler Iqon Technologies is to move premises to boost its manufacturing capacity.
The Dundalk firm originally had reserved space close to its current location and had drafted plans for a 22,000 sq ft building to be finished this September.
The timetable for relocation was accelerated following Iqon’s recently finalised deal with Argos’ parent company Great Universal Stores (GUS). The agreement will see the Irish system builder supply 75 per cent of the PCs sold through GUS catalogues.
As a result, Iqon has moved to acquire a factory that will allow it to build 100,000 desktop systems and 6,000 laptop units per year when operating at full capacity. The 32,000 sq ft building, also in Dundalk, is considerably larger than what the company was originally planning to build. The PC assembler plans to have moved to the new facility by the end of April.
By the end of this year, Iqon expects to have assembled close to 45,000 PCs and 4,000 laptops — an increase of 110 per cent and 200 per cent respectively on last year’s output. The company is still looking into the possibility of manufacturing a PDA device but has shelved those plans temporarily because of cost issues.
Iqon will be taking on a number of additional employees to handle the increased workload. The company expects to employ 70 people before the end of 2002. Current headcount is 41, an increase from 28 last year.
There are three elements to Iqon’s business: domestic retail sales, export retail and business products. In the last year, all three grew at almost the same rates, according to sales director Ciaran O’Donoghue. ‘Our retail business in Ireland North and South in Q4 was much stronger than expected,’ he said.
Last year, Iqon earmarked the corporate market as a growth area and had begun recruiting dealers to supply its business products. The company has had some success in this area, notably in approaching resellers to submit joint proposals for large tenders.
By winning bids for some of these contracts, Iqon has helped to forge good relationships with some of the country’s leading resellers. This in turn has also led to approaches from other dealers.
Sales of Iqon’s business systems for January and February of this year rose 70 per cent compared with last year, O’Donoghue added. ‘We’re coming from a small base but we’re ahead of where we thought we would be,’ he told ComputerScope.
Although the GUS and Argos deals were a huge boost for the company, O’Donoghue was adamant that Iqon would not lean too heavily on any one element of its business. ‘We are placing as much emphasis on each of these three so we’re not dependent on one line of business or on landing a large deal,’ he said.
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