Production to grow this year between 2% and 3%

Manufacturing production in Ireland is still expected to grow by between 2% and 3% this year, despite figures showing a marginal decline in August — the first fall in six months.

Such an increase for 2012 as a whole would represent a third consecutive year of growth for manufacturing.

“Whatever about the short-term, we believe that when the world economy regains momentum Ireland is better placed than most to take advantage of that,” said Alan McQuaid, chief economist with Merrion Stock-brokers.

“While external factors don’t look particularly encouraging for the manufacturing sector at this point in time, Ireland’s focus on relatively recession-hardy exports, such as pharmaceuticals, and its improving competitiveness should help it weather the storm better than most.

“Indeed, according to figures released earlier this week, manufacturing activity picked up in September, bucking the trend in the rest of the eurozone.”

Those figures formed part of NCB Stockbrokers’ purchasing managers’ index series and showed Irish manufacturers made gains in new business orders, but saw a fall in export order levels.

Yesterday, the CSO published manufacturing data for August, which showed a monthly fall of 0.7% in production levels, but a 0.2% year-on-year rise. There was a monthly rise of 5.1% in the hi-tech-driven “modern” sector, but a 0.9% fall in the “traditional” sector. August’s reverse was the first since a 3.3% fall in production levels in February.

And, while soundings from the likes of NCB and Merrion Stockbrokers are broadly positive, Davy Stockbrokers struck a more cautious note.

It said the slowdown in the traditional sector, in particular, is worrying with such industries showing year-on-year falls in the last ten months.

“The traditional sector employs 129.200 people, compared to 63,500 in the highly productive modern sector. Continued declines in the traditional sector could have knock-on effects for employment in a sector that shed nearly 5,000 jobs in the first quarter of this year,” said Davy analyst David McNamara.

Fleetmatics shares up 35% on first day

By Geoff Percival

Dublin-based specialist software firm Fleetmatics got off to a flyer on its first day as a public company yesterday, with its shares opening at $22.95 (€17.61) on the New York Stock Exchange, 35% higher than its initial $17 offer price.

Chief executive Jim Travers and other members of the firm’s management team rang the NYSE’s opening bell yesterday ahead of their first day’s trading.

The listing was estimated to generate net proceeds of over $94m for Fleetmatics.

By mid-afternoon Irish time, the company’s shares were trading at about $21.80, 28% up on its initial offer price.

Fleetmatics — which has offices in Ireland, Britain and the US — is a fleet management specialist whose services are used by over 16,000 customers, with its GPS-based systems tracking more than 250,000 vehicles.

The company hosts its operations from two data centres — one in Dublin and one in Denver. A growing element of its subscriber base is now located in the US — where more than 10% of annual revenue is generated — and the company’s solutions allow those companies to manage their commercial vehicle fleets by logging such key details as fuel usage, mileage and vehicle location. Its main revenue stream is the sale of software subscriptions to its service offerings.