As in previous years, the USA, Germany, Italy, India, China and the UK were the main contributors to total sales. A slight increase in sales was even achieved in the US market and in some European markets.

Although the KLS Martin Group had an acceptable workload throughout the year, the effects of the Corona pandemic were felt in sales and costs. The costs for the various measures taken in connection with the Corona virus now amount to over EUR 600 thousand. However, the protection of employees is a top priority for the family-owned company. That's why it introduced shift work in production, installed additional protective measures at workstations, invested in IT infrastructure and began sending employees into remote work at an early stage. "Employees and their families were provided with free protective masks, and parents of children in need of care were each given five days of special leave for childcare in 2020 and 2021," explains Karl Leibinger.

All meetings are now held online, and the global sales meeting in January was also conducted completely digitally. "Most events could not take place as planned. In order to maintain contact with our customers and reseller partners despite the lockdown, we looked for new opportunities and offered webinars, which were very well received. In 2020, we held more than 100 webinars with over 19,000 participants," reports Michael Martin.

2020 was also an eventful year in other ways for the Swabian family-owned company. In April, the Karl Leibinger company from Mühlheim took over the significant business operations of the Stuckenbrock company and its shares in Gebrüder Martin. As a result, all companies of the KLS Martin Group are now fully owned by the Leibinger family.

In July, after an intensive planning phase and a 15-month construction period, the new production building "Building 70" in Mühlheim, Germany was occupied. Modern workplaces for the development and production of implants and biomaterials were created on around 5,400m² distributed over three levels.

And the KLS Martin Group has also set its sights high for 2021. "We are looking positively to 2021, for which we are planning sales growth in the upper single-digit range. In particular, we expect continued above-average growth in the areas of virtual planning of surgical procedures and patient-specific implants," explains Christian Leibinger.