Company remains bullish about future, with plans to quadruple turnover in just four years.
Ironmongery Direct has announced a 25% increase on full year turnover for 2010 compared with 2009 - the sixth consecutive year of growth.

The unaudited figures, announced today, show turnover reached £12.5m compared with £9.9m in 2009. Pre-tax profit more than doubled to £1m in the year and, says the company, 30,000 new tradesmen opened Ironmongery Direct accounts last year.

The online channel grew faster than catalogue sales, seeing a 40% jump in turnover to £4.3m, meaning they now account for more than a third of all sales.

Plans for the future are ambitious and aggressive, with md Wayne Lysaght-Mason looking to reach sales of £50m in just four years.

However, average sales growth over the past five years has been 26-27% with the 25% sales growth in 2010 actually representing a slowing, from the 36% growth of the previous two years. So organic growth may not be enough to achieve the business' ambitious targets.

However, the company insists that an aggressive expansion plan will make this possible, with plans for a "considerable expansion" of the premises, an increase from the current 11,500 lines stocked to 20,000 within the next five years and plans to quadruple the staff headcount.

Commenting on the plans, Mr Lysaght-Mason said: "We are continuing to expand and invest in the business and our staff. We've already started laying the groundwork; a new product management team was employed in 2010...we are also committing considerable resources to further development of our software systems."