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19.08.2022 General information about the current situation at PIKO

Dear PIKO friends,

2022 is an exceptionally busy year and we are grateful to all of you for being so loyal to PIKO, as you also showed with your visit to our "Open Day".

We are working hard to deliver the products you ordered, which is extremely difficult due to container transit times from China of up to 110 days. 110 days is almost 4 months. This means that products that we produced in our Chashan factory in March, shipped in April, are now arriving in August. We are not used to this kind of delay in the history of PIKO and neither are you. Not only has the cost of container shipping increased by 4-5 times, now there is the added delay in delivery. - When will this get better? I cannot tell you.

Unfortunately, there is the added disaster that we are not getting the required quantity of micro-chips for decoders.

The only good thing about this situation is that at our Chashan factory we are both very much on schedule with new product development and running production at full capacity. After all, our output in PIKO Chashan is + 35% higher than last year, and last year we also had a strong increase. Is that important for you? Yes, because it gives you the guarantee that you will receive the PIKO articles you ordered. When will they arrive in Germany? I hope there won't be too long a delay.

In addition to the delivery problems, there are now all kinds of price increases, which you are unfortunately already experiencing dramatically in your daily shopping.

We at PIKO have invested a lot and rationalised a lot, but we cannot absorb everything, which is why we unfortunately had to implement a 5% price increase on 1 August. We ask for your understanding.

But: We have promised our dealers that they will receive all goods ordered before August at the old price. Please remember this!

In addition to these problems, we are working flat out to become an even more sustainable company, and not just since Putin attacked Ukraine. To this end, we installed a photovoltaic system two years ago, which - if the sun were always shining - would cover our entire annual electricity needs. It doesn't, but at least we now cover a lot ourselves and still feed some of it into the grid. Our company cars are also being converted peu-á-peu to electric cars. New windows are being installed, insulation improved and LED lamps installed throughout the production area. We also offer our employees mobile working wherever possible. This also saves energy, for the employee and for the company.

And what's in store for us next year? First of all, the International Toy Fair, which will be open to the public for two days in February 2023. More than 10 years ago we fought for this, at that time even with injunctions against the Spielwarenmesse, to give our customers access to the fair. Today? We are of the opinion that the fair is no longer in the focus of the end consumers and that fewer and fewer model railway dealers come. We will turn 2 years of "no toy fair" in Nuremberg into 3 years for PIKO. So if you are planning to come to Nuremberg in February 2023, please excuse us, we will not be exhibiting there. Instead, we will show all our available novelties at the first consumer fairs in 2023, in March in Mannheim and in April at the Intermodellbau in Dortmund, where many small series manufacturers will be present in addition to the "big" suppliers. Please visit us there, it's worth it.

On the other hand, in the context of sustainability, we will also be doing the environment a service with our catalogues: in 2023 there will be no new printed PIKO H0 or G catalogues. With a volume of 450 pages for an H0 catalogue, we consume a lot of paper and thus wood and pulp. Here we would like to make a contribution in the sense of environmental protection and change the frequency of the printed H0 and G catalogues to a two-year rhythm. In return, we will provide the printed novelty sheets with more information. The catalogues for TT and N, which are not as extensive anyway, will be published in print as usual. Digitally, however, the new H0 and G catalogues for 2023 will be available as usual from 1.1.2023. - A paper edition is then planned for 2024.

So that's it this time as detailed information from me for you, maybe I will also shoot a vlog about it, let's see.

Please don't let the difficult situation in Germany and the world spoil the fun of your model railway hobby. Please go to your dealer and see what new products we will be delivering at the end of August. The big wave of novelties will then - we hope - arrive in September (everything is already floating or running - but when it will arrive we don't know), you will be surprised, they are great new models that not only look good but also run reliably. That's PIKO quality.

All the best yours

19. August 2022