STEETON based Acorn Stairlifts, continues to perform strongly despite significant increases in operating costs.

Newly-published figures from Acorn show an annual turnover of £255.8 million, up by £10.4 million on the previous year’s trading. However, profit after tax was slightly down at just over £48 million, compared to £50.1 million the previous year.

This reflects the business absorbing increased operating costs such as energy to run its UK factories and raw materials to build its stairlifts. Although Acorn Stairlifts are sold in around 110 countries worldwide, they are all manufactured in the UK, at two factories in West Yorkshire and another in Scotland.

The latest results – which cover the year ended September 30 2023 – show that more than two-thirds (67.6%) of Acorn’s total revenue is generated by overseas markets. As well as its UK home market, the business operates throughout Western Europe, in the USA and Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The recent opening of a Singapore office means it is now active on five continents.

The total number of people employed by Acorn rose to 1,365, up by 64 on the previous year, as it actively recruits in support of its continued global expansion. It recently launched a new global careers website – careers.acornstairlifts.com – with vacancies posted from its operations in the UK and abroad.

Acorn’s group finance director Joanne Richardson said: “Like everyone else, we’ve seen our costs rise significantly in recent years. But because we’re a financially strong business, with no debt, we’ve been able to absorb a large part of that cost without passing it on to our customers.

“We’ve also made improvements to our global distribution networks, which mean we can better control the cost of shipping our UK-made stairlifts to Acorn customers around the world.”

Looking ahead, Acorn is targeting ambitious sales growth in regions where it is already active, such as North America, where it is the market leader for home stairlifts. It also continues to invest in entering and developing new markets around the world where a strong demand for its stairlifts has been identified.