Austin Engineering says it has won more than 100 orders for new truck trays at its Chile business in the first three months of its 2025 financial year (to September 30, 2024).
The orders are collectively worth circa A$35 million ($23 million) and are expected to be delivered before the end of this financial year (to June 30, 2025). The orders represent significant, and potentially ongoing incremental business over the previous year, Austin says.
The bulk of the purchase orders for “first fit” trays to OEMs follow on from an initial small production order to check product quality and capability, awarded earlier and announced to the market in March 2024.
The orders represent an improved revenue outlook for Austin’s Chile business unit following a record revenue year in the 2024 financial year. A successful ramp up of production is likely to see further orders placed with the Chile business for delivery towards the end of the current financial year and into financial year 2026.
The increased orders will require Austin to produce up to circa three times the number of trays per month in the 2025 financial year from its recent production levels. As a result, Austin has deployed its manufacturing improvement team to Chile to assist in planning the production ramp up. The Chile business is already operating at twice the truck tray production rate averaged in its 2024 financial year and is expecting to reach the new required production rate by early 2025. In addition to the OEM orders, expected production levels of Austin’s own brand tray ranges are expected to strengthen alongside continued demand for both new and rebuild mining buckets, including dipper buckets.
Austin is confident these orders represent a new normal in the level of tray production that can be expected in the region in future years and that the contribution of this business unit to group results will become increasingly important, it stated. In the 2024 financial year, the Chile business had a revenue base of A$51.6 million, which included only a minor contribution from the program outlined above. As is usual for Austin customer arrangements they are subject to the regular placement of purchase orders and programs do not commit the customers to minimum orders.
Austin Chile is also reporting strong growth in its bucket business for new buckets and rebuilds. As previously announced, in dipper buckets alone, the Chile team expects to have rebuilt more than 22 dipper buckets at the end of 2024 and is currently building a new large dipper bucket for a local customer.
Austin Chile services the copper mines of northern Chile and southern-central Peru where demand has been very strong, driven by a rise in global demand for copper, which has traded at strong levels this year.
In the 2024 financial year, Austin Chile recorded a 26% year-on-year increase in revenue, with strong recurring revenue of 91%. Growth in the 2025 financial year is expected to comfortably exceed that level.
Austin CEO and Managing Director, David Singleton, said: “This ‘first fit’ tray program represents a significant outcome from the long-term investment in global relationships that Austin has made. We believe this style of order could fundamentally change the growth rate of our business not only in Chile but in our other business units if it is duplicated in other regions.
“These contracts and resultant orders required Austin to develop its operational processes, its capabilities, and its teams. The enabling of this ramp-up has been achieved through the investments made under our Austin 2.0 strategy that has focused on customer relations, integrating the business globally, and readying our manufacturing facilities for increased production.”
