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"Mercury Innovation Results in Record Year"01/02/2005
Mercury Marine'sdirect-fuel-injected OptiMax engines experienced their greatestsuccess to date in 2004, with double-digit sales growth over 2003,including record unit sales.OptiMax, theboating industry's first direct-injected engine, offers hightorque, blistering speed, low emissions and tremendous fuel economyfrom a lightweight engine that ranges from 75 to 250horsepower."Direct-injectedengines offer some of the best features of Two-stroke andFour-stroke engines, making them the perfect choice for manyapplications," said PatrickC. Mackey, president of Mercury Marine. "With Mercury'sleadership in eliminating the sale of non-compliant engines, ourOptiMax and FourStroke technologies offer boaters a completechoice."
OptiMax sales in2004 grew in many markets, with major Mercury customers TrackerMarine, Triton and Genmar Holdings leading the way.
Mercury was alsobolstered by the great success of its high-tech Verado FourStrokeengines, introduced in 200-275 hp models at the 2004 MiamiInternational Boat Show. The award-winning Verado delivers greattop-end speed, hole-shot acceleration, fuel economy and reliabilityfrom an advanced six-cylinder engine that produces only a fractionof the noise of traditional outboards. Verado models of 135, 150and 175 horsepower will be introduced at the Feb. 17-21 boat showin Miami. Boston Whaler, Genmar Holdings and Tracker Marine led themarket for Verado sales in 2004.
BrunswickCorporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer George W. Buckleyrecognized those accomplishments, along with Mercury's solidoverall performance, while noting lingering market pressures fromunfair Japanese outboard import practices today in Brunswick'squarterly earnings announcement. Mercury Marine is a unit ofBrunswick.
"Mercury . . . got awell-earned sales boost from the introduction of the Verado familyof outboard engines earlier in the year," said Mr.Buckley. "This high-horsepower,FourStroke engine is the only supercharged production outboardengine in the world. Verado has received critical acclaim, andshould help to offset to some extent a continually challengingdomestic outboard market, in which we believe unfair tradepractices by Japanese competitors have artificially depressedprices and harmed American manufacturers, severely hamperingoperating margins".
"For the year, MercuryMarine benefited from strong international sales, which were up 16percent for the year. Operating-margin improvement was registeredin all units with the exception of domestic outboards, where wecontinue to experience significant competitive pricing pressurefrom Japanese imports."
Mr. Mackeyagreed, citing ramifications of the dumping tactics.
"Obviously, the strongsales of OptiMax and Verado engines were not enough to mitigate thecontinuing challenges of the marketplace," he said."Mercury's domesticoutboard business continues to face many obstacles, primarily fromdumping-related market pressures. Virtually every Mercury divisionreported strong returns in 2004, except our domestic outboard unit,where we specifically continue to experience significantcompetitive and unfair pricing pressure from Japaneseimports."
The U.S.Department of Commerce ruled last month that Japanese outboardcompanies have dumped engines at a 19-percent rate, and the U.S.International Trade Commission (ITC) is scheduled to vote Feb. 2 onwhether the U.S. outboard industry was injured by those unfairpractices. If the ITC members vote in favor of injury, a 19-percentduty will be imposed on all outboards imported to the United Statesfrom Japan.
Mercury is adivision of Brunswick Corporation.
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