Record growth confirms that MK Illumination is well on the road to global success

We're back from our holiday break and I'm pleased to share a little company news today!

22 years ago, MK Illumination sold festive lighting from a garage in Weer, Austria. Today it continues to be run by its founding trio, Klaus Mark, his wife Marie, and his twin brother Thomas Mark, and it’s firmly positioned as the world market leader in festive decorative lighting.

To meet the ever-increasing demand for festive decorative lighting worldwide, the company now employs a staggering 1000 people across its 40 country branches and 10 production facilities in Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. Turnover is up, too: the company is on track to report a turnover of €130 million in 2018, which is a stable growth across the globe of 18%.  In the past two years alone, the company has succeeded in increasing sales by €50 million.

A beacon of success over the festive season

Numerous new lighting installations, including those in Slovenia’s port city of Koper, Stuttgart city center, London’s Westfield shopping center, Manila’s Eastwood City, Lithuania’s Acropolis shopping center, and an entire promenade in Dubai, extend the impressive list of prestige projects delivered by MK Illumination over the holiday season.

Festive lighting isn’t just for Christmas

For many years, much of MK Illumination’s turnover came from festive lighting products and solutions that took pride of place over the Christmas season, however the company has long known that light is an essential ingredient in many other settings.

In 2018, they demonstrated the power of festive lighting during festivities and celebrations as diverse as Chinese New Year, Carnival, Easter, Ramadan, and Halloween. Some of this year’s highlights have included a record-breaking golden dragon in The Shops at Crystals in Las Vegas*, an interactive flying lantern installation in Taikoo Li Sanlitun shopping center in Beijing to celebrate Chinese New Year, and the transformation of Dubai’s "The Beach", "La Mer, "Al Seef" and “Dubai Mall” for the end of Ramadan.

Breaking new ground

Pushing boundaries is a key part of MK Illumination’s ethos, so it should come as no surprise that in 2018 they increased their client-base in the travel sector, specifically in airports. As an Austrian company, they were delighted to be chosen to design and install festive decorative lighting in Vienna Schwechat Airport for the first time.

They also moved into a new space, light parks and light festivals, creating atmospheric experiences like "Haldenzauber" in Hückelhoven, Germany (in close cooperation with the city marketing department); “Festa Luce” in Wakayama City, Japan; “Jeju Art Park” on Jeju Island, South Korea; and the first instance of “Luci d'Artista” in Naples, proving once again their adaptability and commitment to innovation.

“MK Illumination has changed the market and we’ll continue to change it,” said CEO Klaus Mark.

New business capabilities

2018 also saw MK Illumination expanding its business capabilities with the creation of MK Themed Attractions, a new division dedicated to creating permanent themed experiences for amusement parks and temporary themed experiences for shopping centers and cities, as well as themed stages for festivals through, MK Phixion. The division has already created unique and engaging themed experiences for clients like Europapark, Germany; Tivoli, Friheden, Denmark; Plopsa‘s Majaland Kownaty, Poland; and for the world’s most prestigious festivals, including Tomorrowland, Belgium.

“We’re the only company in the world that combines world-class, self-produced festive lighting with the expertise to envision and realize permanent and temporary themed attractions. We’re taking experiences to the next level,” said Mark.

The only way is up

The company is upbeat about prospects for ongoing global growth in the coming financial year. Watch this space for exciting future developments.

--

I'm looking forward to another exciting year of creating unparalleled festive lighting solutions with and for all of clients, including those in the Retail Real Estate sector. If you're interested to see what 2019 is going to bring, you'll definitely want to stop by and see us at Christmasworld from 25-29 January - more to follow on that very soon, I promise.