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Networking leader sets up shop in the UK

02 April, 2011

The Swedish industrial communications specialist HMS Industrial Networks has set up a UK subsidiary with the aim of expanding its UK and Irish business, currently worth around £1m, and entering new sectors such as process control and building management. “We could easily double of triple the business by doing the right things,” says HMS CEO, Staffan Dahlström.

The British and Irish markets are strategically important for us,” he adds. Dahlström (above) believes there is “outstanding growth potential” among innovative small and mid sized UK businesses involved in industrial automation and process control “which will give us a springboard for supplying our technology to new applications”. At present, the UK represents just 3% of HMS’ business.

The newly established HMS Industrial Networks UK, located in Coventry, will be run by general manager Björn Franzen, assisted by sales and business development manager, David Folley.

HMS, which claims to be the world’s largest supplier of industrial connection technologies, specialises in protocol conversion gateways and devices that automation manufacturers can embed in their products to support a variety of networking protocols. It employs more than 200 people, ships more than 250,000 products every year, had a turnover in 2010 of £33m, and has been growing at an average rate of 20% for the past six years. HMS spends 10–15% of its turnover on R&D, and a quarter of its staff work in this area.

HMS has recently announced a new generation its Anybus gateways.