British construction equipment manufacturer JCB, whose North and South American operations are based in Savannah, set new records for pre-tax profit, revenue, machines sales and global market share in 2006, the company announced Monday.

"Last year was absolutely the most successful in JCB's history," said JCB Managing Director and CEO John Patterson. "We not only benefited from growth in the global construction equipment market, but, more importantly, we've grown faster than the market."

In 2006, JCB reported pre-tax profits of $290 million, an increase of 35 percent over $220 million posted in 2005. Revenue increased to a record $3.5 billion, up from $2.8 billion; machine sales increased to 55,000 units, up from 45,000, and JCB's world market share rose from 9.6 percent in 2005 to 10.4 percent last year.

With that growth, JCB moved up to become the third-largest construction equipment manufacturer in the world, behind only Caterpillar and Komatsu.

In Savannah, JCB added two new product lines - a telescopic handler as well as the High Mobility Engineer Excavator, a machine designed and built specifically for the U.S. Army. Together, they helped increase volume at JCB's only American manufacturing plant by 62 percent last year.

In line with that growth, the company's local work force grew 12 percent in 2006 and has already added another 100 jobs so far in 2007, said company spokeswoman Karen Guinn.

While Guinn declined to provide current job numbers, the company's announcement last September that it planned to add approximately 250 employees to a work force that was already close to 400 should put it somewhere in the neighborhood of 500.

Also in 2006, JCB began the process of integrating both North American and South American operations under one umbrella - JCB The Americas - in Savannah.

The Savannah facility now exports 40 percent of the machines it builds to South America, Patterson said.

"A number of projects have come to fruition for us in 2006 - projects that have really helped us compete on a global scale," Patterson said. "We opened a second factory in India as well as new facilities in Germany and China - an investment of more than $240 million."

Particularly significant in 2006 was JCB's entry into the China market with its first factory in Shanghai, Patterson said.

"The growth in China's economy is nothing short of explosive, especially in the eastern part of the country, where there has been a migration of workers from farms and agriculture to the coast," he said.

That, along with infrastructure improvements and preparations under way for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, have been major drivers of construction activity, Patterson said.

In the U.S., where the construction business is closely tied to housing starts and development, growth has been harder to come by.

One of the major bright spots has been the production in Savannah of the High Mobility Engineer Excavator for the U.S. Army, which is expected to take delivery of its first machine this month.

That order, which now stands at more than 600 units, represents the largest single contract awarded to JCB to date.

"This is the culmination of a four-year project and one we're especially proud of," Patterson said, adding that other branches of the U.S. military as well as other governments are now looking at the HMEE.

"The military is a very demanding customer. If you can earn your stripes with them, that says a lot about the quality of your product."

The dollar dilemma

The weak dollar can both help and hurt a global manufacturer operating in the U.S., said JCB Managing Director and CEO John Patterson.

"As we do more manufacturing here, we are constantly looking to localize our material contacts," Patterson said, adding that JCB continues to cultivate suppliers in Georgia and the Southeast.

The eventual goal, regardless of what the dollar does, is to develop a supplier park next to the manufacturing plant.

"But we don't quite have the production to support that yet," he said.

When the company has to import components, the dollar's weakness against other currencies hurts, he said.

"But it helps when we export finished products to South America, Southeast Asia and Australia."

ABOUT JCB IN SAVANNAH

The headquarters of JCB The Americas - a 500,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility - is set on 1,064 acres of property in Pooler. The $62 million plant is part of a $100 million investment by JCB in the Savannah area.

In addition to the manufacturing facility, the campus has a large demonstration area and training facilities. Future plans call for an adjacent supplier park for key component vendors.

JCB's first "Made in America" machine, a backhoe loader, came off the line in early 2000.

Today, four separate machines - backhoe loaders, skid steer loaders, telescopic handlers and a high-mobility engineer excavator - roll off the production line in Savannah.