The company is seeing sales 25% up on last year which, in itself, saw increased sales on previous years. Turner cites good products and design innovations as just some of the reasons for these increases.

He highlighted the Icom M31, a product he described as a good quality "star" for this year with sales up two to three times more than for the previous product the year before. SMG also says Raymarine's C-series is showing strong growth and underlining the trend towards more modular and networked products. In over 20 years in the business Turner has long expected the advent of one screen carrying out a multitude of tasks and this is now a reality and being bought in greater numbers.

As with many others, sales for SMG are divided between the commercial and leisure markets with the leisure sector being the largest. With the trend in the UK, however, towards smaller commercial craft, especially in the fishing market, it's making many of the products aimed at smaller craft ideal for the commercial sectors. These had previously been the domain of the large and potentially specialist equipment suppliers and models.

Another area of expansion, and an area highlighted by other retailers and suppliers, has been brought about by the ability of some GPS equipment to be utilised for differing applications.

As Turner pointed out, some of the Garmin range can be used by boat users as well as extreme sportsmen and women, outdoor enthusiasts and the automotive sectors, just by changing the software.

With the addition of accessory packs, these normally hand held units can, for example, be converted to car use, opening up a huge market that SMG and many others are now targeting, along with their more traditional client base.

Big name Another big name is Plastimo, one of the industry's largest suppliers covering both the leisure and the lighter commercial, which has been around for 40 years and has recently started to move into the leisure angling and smaller inshore markets with, amongst others, the NavMan range.

With what Ross Wilkinson, Plastimo's sales manager, describes as "substantial growth" in sales of marine electronics generally, he feels the addition of an extended range of plotters and fish finders will boost this growth still further.

As far as promotion is concerned NavMan is showing for the first time at RiBEx and SIBS 2004 with new products to launch at both events.

Out of all the products on offer he sees the VHFs standing out as good sellers and, as of the time of going to the press, has seen no impact on the sales of McMurdo EPIRB equipment as a result of the potentially adverse publicity from the US.

David Ash, MD of Mantsbrite, described the company as "exceptionally busy." The company has, like others, begun to sell into new areas by capitalising on equipment able to cater for multiple uses.

"People look for versatility, " Ash told us, "and equipment like the Magellan Meridian provide this."

Although the majority of the company's business comes from the leisure market it is also seeing growth in the sales of more commercially orientated equipment like the Black Box.

With this radar system selling for around £4300, plus monitor, it's now almost half the cost it was few years ago, opening up a new group of potential customers selling to owners of larger leisure vessels and to commercial users.

The company has also been awarded the exclusive UK dealership for Magellan GPS products since Mark Dowland is no longer distributing this range.

For an overview of the industry in general we spoke to Tony Johns, secretary of the British Marine Electronics Association (BMEA) and found the general feeling expressed at their recent quarterly management meeting was that business was "brisk".

Many changes In his 40 years involvement in the industry Johns says he has seen many changes and the continual development of new technologies and applications within the marine market. In most cases these reflect both the type and pace of change in other areas of the electronics industry, none more so, he says, than the move, some years ago, from analogue to digital processing, which he described as a "quantum leap".

This, along with improvements in colour displays for plotters and radars making them easier to see in sunlight, typify the advances being made both in new products and the technologies behind them.

As for the future, Johns feels the increase in the use of PCs in more modest sized boats will inevitably be an area of growth.

With improved interfacing of products, faster data transfer and simplified installation.

Johns says the need to integrate systems and move data between differing pieces of equipment has been noticed by all of the big manufactures including Simrad which, a short time ago, introduced Simnet.

This new protocol has been designed to enable an increasing number of individual products to be easily networked together and to quickly move data between these products. As Jeremy Harrison, director of Simrad said, "customers want linked equipment".

During last years SIBS the company launched a 45cm and a 60 cm dish antennae with the same product being promoted to both the commercial and the leisure market. As a result the company has sold the same number of products to both sectors.

With more boat users needing entertainment systems to amuse their children whilst on board the need for "full entertainment" is increasing and, as a result of development work in this area, Simrad is finding this very successful.

Markers will grow "Over the next 12 to 18 months the market will grow, " said Harrison, "due in part to the marketing efforts of both Simrad and our competitors."

Simrad, as a company, has been "bedding in" B&G into the overall operation and learning more about its range and customer base and the new market sector it has introduced.

According to Harrison, this has been helped in no small way by the successes of some high profile record breaking sailing achievements using either B&G, Simrad or a combination of both product ranges.

In his opinion the leisure market has been changing with reduced volumes in the smaller (25 - 45 ft) end of the power boat range however the 45 - 65 ft and the superyacht, luxury end of the range has continued well, all of which has an effect on the market for electronics and entertainment products.

Changes in buying have also been noticed with what he call's the "return of the retailer" as increasing numbers of customers buying from the big retail outlets. Simrad's technical dealers are reporting increased numbers of customers asking for fitting services but supplying equipment themselves having bought, in their opinion, more cheaply from a major retailer.

Growth in this area could also be as a result of all the manufacturers working hard towards the goal of easy installation and set up making the average DIY boat owner more confident to install such equipment.

Another company focusing on the network and communications between individual parts of a system is Tacktick. The company has had major success over the last few years as it developed Micronet, its wireless networking system for marine use. Although the concept of having wireless communications between items of equipment is not new outside the marine industry, it's only recently that the idea has taken off with boat owners and builders.

Power hungry For sometime now BlueTooth technology has been used for mobile phone headsets, etc but, as Clive Johnson, Tacktick's joint MD explained, "BlueTooth is power hungry and is also not reliable in some environments."

With this in mind, the team at Tacktick began to develop a new system that was more reliable and used less power.

Seven years later and both the concept and the products are being widely accepted and used with boatbuilders now reportedly asking, "why hadn't someone thought of this before?"

The other result of all this development, has been a number of awards being made to the team that develop and manufacture in Emsworth, Hampshire. This includes the DAME award at the 2003 METS.

For this year's event a new range of products is going to be launched and, in addition, the company has recently opened a French office to look after distribution in that area.

Johnson sees these awards as very important in gaining credibility, especially in new areas. Previously known for craft up to 35ft the DAME award means approaches to manufacturers up to 60ft plus can be made with added confidence.