BALTIMORE — On Sept. 1, it was 80 years since Mads Clausen founded Danfoss in his parents’ farmhouse in Nordborg, Denmark. Since then, the business has grown from a solo enterprise into one of the world's leading suppliers of energy-efficient products and solutions, employing a staff of 23,000 and with sales in more than 100 countries.

Danfoss had an international outlook early on, exporting to other European countries as early as 1939, and in 1949, it set up a sales company in Argentina.

During the 1950s, Danfoss established itself in the United States and Germany, and when globalization began to pick up speed in the 1990s, Danfoss was prepared, with factories and sales companies in Russia and China. Today, these four countries are Danfoss’ biggest markets.

Niels B. Christiansen, president and CEO, said, “The global market has been a cornerstone for Danfoss, long before anyone even talked about globalization, and this has provided us with an international position we can be proud of. We were one of the first to get out there in the large emerging markets and have worked purposefully to build up good relations with our customers and business partners. Going forward, we will continue to focus on our main markets and the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, while also putting more efforts into new growth markets such as Turkey and Indonesia, where we have already gained experiences.”

Today, Danfoss has close to 50 different product lines and invests around 4 percent of its net sales in new products designed to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions in food refrigeration, air conditioning, heating, regulating the speed of electric motors, and in powering mobile machinery.

For more information, visit www.danfoss.us.

Publication date: 9/2/2013

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