Antares Cluj sells 5.1m euros' worth of office chairs

Cluj-Napoca-based Antares, a member of the Antares group and a manufacturer of ergonomic office chairs and executive armchairs, posted a 5.1 million-euro turnover in the first half of this year, up 13% on the same time in 2007. Considering the financial performance recorded in the first half of this year, officials of the Cluj-based company forecast a 13.5 million-euro turnover for 2008, up by around 32% against 2007. “So far, 2008 has proven a good year for Antares Romania. We ended the first half with 250,000 chairs sold and 13% higher sales compared with the same period in 2007. The higher turnover recorded in this period is primarily because of the rise of the office furniture market, as well as of exports to Antares branches in Hungary and Bulgaria,” Laczko Csaba, general manager of Antares Romania, told ZF. He added that in the January-June period of 2008, the company manufactured 190,000 chairs at its two facilities in Cluj and Bucharest, which means production was up by around 27% against the same time last year. “The end of this year will be more demanding for our company. In the second half of the year we will have to see a 20% higher production than in the first half of the year,” says Csaba. Antares representatives believe the Romanian office furniture market is in its final stage of maturing, with local manufacturers being quite well known, while a large part of major European companies also have subsidiaries in Romania. ZF