A big thank you to all those members who were able to supply data for our statistics update. As you may already know we have being trying to put some numbers around the size of the ESA in order to be able to supply a variety of EU industry groups. This data will also be published on our own website and updated every few years. The New Membership Application form also collects the data in the same format so that we can build on this base.
Forty six out of the fifty two members were able to supply data. In order to supply a complete picture and account for the shortfall we removed the five largest and five smallest organisations from the data and averaged out the remainder of the numbers to account for the missing information.
The ESA currently has fifty two members with a combined turnover in Europe of gaskets, packings, mechanical seals, expansion joints, elastomeric and polymeric seals of €2.6 billion. The members have just under 500 sites engaged in the manufacturing, sales and distribution of these products.
The total number of people employed is approximately 12,500 accounting for a turnover of €200,000 per employee. 8.8% of those employees are involved directly with R&D and technical functions, 50.6% in manufacturing, 25.9% in sales and distribution and 16% in admin/other duties.
Over 25% of members export to 50 or more countries and by far the single most important industry sector for our products is the Oil & Petrochemical 39%, followed by Pharmaceutical & Chemical at 23% and then 15% for power generations.
In addition to the above statistics we have taken legal advice and I am pleased to confirm that we will be able to continue gathering specific market data from members relating to sales of individual product groups. Whilst trade associations have to tread carefully with these sorts of issues we had not breached any laws relating to anti-competitive behaviour and we intend to keep it that way. This issue has been raised with each division and will feature on the agenda of the individual meetings at the AGM.
If you have any specific questions relating to this survey or other market data, please do not hesitate to contact Mark Neal.