Mincon said this week recent acquisitions had contributed little of the sales uplift so far, with stronger markets driving organic growth.

The manufacturer said while gross Q1 margins "came down a couple of points compared to last year in Q1 to 37% as opposed to the 40% of 2016", a small adverse foreign exchange charge couldn't prevent profit before tax from increasing to 10.8% compared with 9.8% a year ago.

"We would, in general, caution against taking this first quarter as a new run rate, even though the growth has been spread across most of our markets," Mincon said in a statement.

"A sector recovery, and to a degree we depend on this for growth in revenue and margin, can be fitful at the early part of the cycle and may not follow a straight line recovery profile by any means.

"However we believe we are working towards an improving position in products, people, customers and resource for the next few years, to build growth and resilience in our business."

Davy said Mincon continued to "impress with very strong growth seen in its manufactured product in Q1".

"Margins are also firming as this growth is delivered."

Australia and the Nordic region had seen the strongest growth in the period.

"With additional capacity coming on line over the course of the next quarter or two due to the recent capex projects, the potential for significant organic growth in H2 is clear," Davy said.

"Combined with opportunities from the Driconeq acquisition and likely commercialisation of the Greenhammer technology in mid-year, the outlook for FY2018 and into FY2019 is very strong."

Mincon said it had net cash at the end of March this year of EUR37.3 million compared with EUR35 million at the end of 2016.