Ansmann Energy
Ansmann’s award-winning portable energy
Founded in 1991, Ansmann Energy is an international company with offices in Hong Kong, Macau, Germany, Italy, France, the Baltics, and the UK.
The company has approximately 220 employees with a turnover of around 40 million euros. Ansmann focuses on the development, production and distribution of leading edge charging and power supply technology, offering high quality products including chargers, batteries, power supplies and mobile lights.
Over the past 15 years, Ansmann Energy has grown steadily by introducing new products to the market and continuously increasing its customer base. Today, operating on a global basis, the company has become one of the most reliable and advanced producers of batteries and battery charging related products in the market. Paul Channell, managing director of Ansmann Energy UK, explains: “The main reasons for our success over the years is the balance between low-cost, high quality Chinese manufacturing along with the Western European style of marketing, quality control and product image.”
He continues: “There are three divisions within Ansmann, which are consumer, industrial and racing. The consumer division is currently the largest. It sells alkaline and rechargeable batteries and chargers for retail shops and has made Ansmann a brand leader across Europe. We tend to sell mostly leading edge products including special versions for digital photography users. The industrial solutions division is the fastest growing. It offers bespoke products for the customer and is probably the biggest strength for us in the future. Within this division we have just won a large order with Stannah to supply all the chargers for their worldwide stair lifts. Portable applications using the latest rechargeable Lithium technologies will play a big part in our future growth in this OEM area. The third division is Ansmann-Racing, which is our newly expanded hobby business. For around six years we have been selling batteries and chargers to hobby shops throughout the world. We have now taken this division even further and can offer everything for remote control cars and all the accessories that go with them. This year the racing division has represented more than two million euro growth for the business.”
Ansmann’s product range is continuously under review and development to ensure that it remains at the forefront of technology and always in top position worldwide for high quality battery chargers for NiCd, NiMH, Lead-acid and the new Li-Ion technologies. The Ansmann range also includes a number of alkaline, lithium and other rechargeable batteries. The company operates in a constantly changing market and in co-operation with its customers it provides innovate technology, which aims to change the future for the better. Rechargeable batteries offer a huge environmental advantage over the billions of disposable cells that are put into land-fill sites each year as they can be used up to 1000 times.
Ansmann Energy as a whole has won various awards for its outstanding product performance. More recently the company won the ‘Which Camera? Big Battery Test’ for the Ansmann energy NiMH 2300mAh. This is established as the most thorough test of power sources for digital photography. It looks at the AA-size cell, which is a battery that is still popular with camera manufacturers. The Ansmann 2300mAh came top of the class when considering both power and value for money ratings. Ansmann can now offer up to 2700mAh which once again puts them at the top of this market.
Many of Ansmann’s products have received awards because of their high quality. The Ansmann Energy 4 received the Excellence Award from the Digital Camera Buyer. This battery charger product boasts a number of mains adaptors for international use, an easy-to-use design and fast charging speeds. The Ansmann Energy 4 is an allround dependable travel charging kit. The Ansmann Digispeed 4 beat off competitors in the Digital Camera Shopper’s Super Test for rechargeable batteries and chargers. This product offers innovative active cooling and safety sensors monitoring the heat, voltage and charge times. It also offers an in-car adaptor allowing users to charge batteries wherever they go.
To maintain the high level of products its customers have come to expect, Ansmann is constantly developing new ways of providing the customer with the best offering on the market. Paul explains: “In the first quarter of 2007 we’re opening a new large quality control logistics centre right next door to the Chinese manufacturing facility. This will provide another level of quality testing, which at the moment we have to do in Germany. We’re moving the quality testing from Germany to China because it will provide a quicker way of controlling quality in the future and keep costs as low as possible.”
He continues: “Our major advance for 2007 is going to be our racing division as it is a totally new product area for us but we will also continue to review the market for new design techniques and new product opportunities. For the last ten years we have grown on average by 22 per cent per year and our vision now is to improve our infrastructure in China. Our new logistics centre there will help us to do this and allow us to become more competitive in the years ahead.”
Paul concludes: “Looking to the future, one of the main challenges we are going to face is direct competition from China. We are able to differentiate ourselves from our competitors through offering the best of both worlds. We offer European design, quality and manufacturing techniques to our customers but at an affordable price by quality controlled production in China.”
Ansmann Energy
Products: Batteries, chargers, power supplies, mobile lights, and hobby racing accessories
Sites: UK, Germany, Hong Kong, Macau, Italy, France and the Baltics
Employees: 220
www.ansmann-energy.com