NEW GLOBAL BOAT STATISTICS PROGRAMME ON TRACK FOR Q1 2007 LAUNCH

The new programme, developed and managed by the International Council of Marine Industry Associations (ICOMIA), will represent the first voluntary based cooperative effort among boat builders to compile sales statistics on an international basis for key powerboat and motoryacht segments. The on-line database system that will manage the statistics programme was successfully demonstrated to participating boat builders at the recent Dusseldorf Boat Show, including Azimut-Benetti, the Brunswick European Group, the Ferretti Group, Mustang Marine, Princess Yachts and Windy Boats. An independent contractor, Applicable Ltd of the UK, is developing the system with generous support from the International Marine Certification Institute (IMCI). Arlene Sloan Baxter of UK-based Baxter & Associates is managing the programme on behalf of ICOMIA. Daniele Diotallevi, Marketing and Business Development Director of the Ferretti Group, was among those to review and provide feedback on the development of the on-line programme at Dusseldorf. “We are very pleased about the progress of the ICOMIA statistics project and look forward to having a regular source of quality data on sales and product trends,” said Diotallevi. Only manufacturers participating and contributing data to the programme will have access to the compiled results. The Ferretti Group of Italy was one of the first companies to sign onto the ICOMIA project, which now includes some 85 boat manufacturers and many of the industry’s biggest volume producers from America, Australia, Europe and the UAE. More recent additions to the programme include Bella Boats of Finland, Rodman Polyships and Astandoa both of Spain, Gulf Craft of the UAE, Riviera Marine of Australia, and Elan Power of Croatia. Over the next two months, participating manufacturers will be testing the system and populating the database with previous model and sales data covering 2004-2006 to gain immediate benefits from trend reports. The system will then go live with the upload of first quarter 2007 sales data this spring. In its first year, the statistics programme will focus on quarterly statistics for series and semi-custom produced rigid hull powerboats and motoryachts, covering unit sales and sales value by month and country of sale. A Steering Group of participating boat manufacturers is responsible for designing the structure of the reporting programme and will provide on-going oversight as it evolves. An independent, external audit will be conducted after the first 12 months of statistics have been compiled to verify the accuracy of data against publicly available sources.