In a mixed market, Keylite came strongly out of the blocks with excellent sales growth over the prior year. January & February were good, but March was over 30% up on 2024 putting Q1 into double digit growth.

Most lenders have priced in expectations of bank base rate cuts, making mortgages relatively affordable compared to the past few years. It’s expected this will stimulate growth during 2025, only constrained by consumer confidence and the chaos from the US, with the near-daily introduction, reversal and dilution of customs tariffs.  However, we’re seeing increased activity in the new build sector at or above industry forecasts.

There’s an acknowledged national skills shortage in construction, so we continue to invest heavily in our sales team, and we’re delighted to exceed our market share growth expectations.

In every area, we’ve increased the number of Area Sales Managers responsible for looking after valued merchant stockists and working with local builders and specifiers to share and follow up leads, generate quotes, demonstrate award winning products and together win orders. This team was further strengthened last year by the addition of Sales Graduates. Their training and induction completed, they’ve been appointed as Area Sales Executives, tasked with doing more of the above, getting in front of more people, more quickly, which means more orders.

A tougher market puts pressure on customers, which raises the bar for their suppliers, which is why merchants value suppliers that are responsive and easy to deal with. Last year’s investments followed a review that included internal sales support. Whether quoting, order processing, despatch, supply chain, technical advice or after sales support, our team is stronger than ever, deploying simplified processes and motivated to support field-based colleagues to respond quickly and accurately to customer queries. An OTIF measure of 99.5% for the quarter is an indicator of the care we put into fulfilling every customer order. And next quarter, we will have an exciting announcement about additional investment.

As a challenger brand, we focus on providing quality, innovative products, strive for service excellence and offer the market a choice in flat and pitched roof windows, loft ladders and accessories. We welcome customer feedback on what can still be better.