OKW Enclosures’ president, Sean Bailey, expects a strong 2023 despite October’s lower than expected fall in US inflation and signs of a cooling labor market
Strong growth at OKW Enclosures helped drive a record year for the group. The company celebrated an impressive rise in revenue compared with the previous 12-months and a significant uplift on the three years before that.
I feel very positive about the OEM electronics market and what that will mean for OKW in 2023. Last year was a record for us, regardless of all the global difficulties caused by Covid-19 and post-pandemic inflation.
OKW always performs well in a challenging economy. This is because designers are more likely to specify standard and customized enclosures and tuning knobs, rather than fully bespoke products which cost more and take longer to manufacture.
Once customers have experienced those benefits, they tend to remain with us because they like our products’ performance and quality. This is what happened in 2022 and we expect 2023 to be similar. Interestingly, although our new products are proving popular, some of our bestselling models last year were older, timeless designs that always sell strongly. We expect that to continue in 2023.
Despite growing demand, lead times at OKW are now back to pre-pandemic levels. That looks set to continue, barring any significant worsening in global geopolitics (notably in Ukraine) or in China’s Covid-19 infection rates.