Synseal: Our roof is No. 1, Ultraframe: Not yet it isn't

Synseal has sold more conservatory roofs, and taken the top spot according to the UK Conservatory Report - 2005 Market & Forecasts, published by Michael Rigby Associates.

‘It's been an interesting journey,' says Nick Dutton, Sales and Marketing Director at Synseal, which has launched the innovative products Shield, Global and the new Global 600 lean-to roof system. ‘We started as a customer of the company we've now overtaken.'

Ultraframe has been quick to dispute this, also playing on the work Rigby's public relations arm does for Synseal.

Dispute

Nick Brown, Sales and Marketing Director at Ultraframe says, ‘It is fair to say that, even if we accept that Michael Rigby's view on Synseal's volume is not inflated, we at Ultraframe are well aware of our own volumes. We can confirm that, based on Rigby's assessment of Synseal, we continued to hold market leadership through 2005 by some distance.'

Lucia Di Stazio, Manager Research Division, Michael Rigby Associates, responds:

‘We have been tracking the market shares of leading players for some years and indeed over a period of five years we reported Ultraframe's share and those of other roof systems companies. During that period when they dominated the market they did not challenge those market shares.'

This is the first year that Ultraframe has challenged the figures. They did not do so when our research showed them to be market leader

She goes on: ‘If we are wrong about Ultraframe's market share figures then we are happy to be corrected, but to do that we require verifiable figures, just as any other leading company provides. Even at this late stage we are happy to take any new figures Ultraframe supplies and redo our calculations. If we are wrong then we will reissue our report with those fresh figures and apologise. However we did ask, and we also sent our preliminary market share figures to all subscribers to the report - including Ultraframe - and they chose not to comment. Interestingly this is the first year Ultraframe has challenged the figures. They did not do so when our research showed them to be market leader or when the Financial Times (21st September 2004) quoted our estimates.

‘For several years we showed Ultraframe to be clear market leader, but by our calculations Ultraframe lost the lead in volume last year while remaining clear leader by value.'

Second opinion

A second opinion won't be ready until around June. Palmer Market Research, which publishes a frequently referred-to survey of the conservatory market, will have its report on the 2005 conservatory market ready at about this time.

Palmer does not include Northern Ireland and the commercial market in his estimates, so there might not be great scope for comparison, beyond which company is named as leader for roof systems.