Yuasa Battery UK now claims to hold a quarter of the market, expanding its share from 10% a year ago.

It hopes to increase this to more than a third of the market share within the next 12 to 18 months.

Andrew Taylor, Yuasa managing director, said it had achieved its growth by “really focusing on our brands” and going in with key partners such as the UK Parts Alliance and Unipart.

Dealing with independents more than franchises, Taylor said the focus always had to be on giving the right service to its customers.

“We try to overperform. We want it to be a pleasure to deal with us. We’ve got extremely good stock.

Nine times out of 10 it is next-day delivery,” he said.

Image is also important. “We’ve changed the image of Yuasa Battery and we will be relaunching next year with more new imagery,” Taylor said.“And we change our advertising campaigns two to three times a year, so they never get old.”

Taylor acknowledged that growth was fairly limited, at around 2-3% over the next few years across Europe.

“There a lot of emerging technologies and green issues to consider,” he said.