Sales of GZ Media, the world leader in phonograph production, rose to a record 332 million euros last year, which is roughly 7.77 billion crowns. Profit before interest, taxes and depreciation increased to 77 million euros, which is about 1.8 billion crowns. The company of one of the richest Czechs, Zdenek Pelc, made 70 million records last year.

In 2021, sales reached 3.48 billion crowns, profit before tax of 736 million crowns and after tax of 658 million crowns, according to the annual report published in the commercial register. Company CEO Michal Štěrba disclosed the information to Seznam Zprávy’s server.

The management of the company, which has its head office and main production plant in Loděnice in Berounsko, expects further growth in the future. “Even in this year, record sales are still growing in small units of percent,” said Štěrba. According to the server, around 200 million classical LPs are produced worldwide, and the Czech company GZ Media accounts for 70 million of them. This year, he wanted to break the one hundred thousand mark. “We will be disappointed if it is less than a hundred million pieces,” said Michal Štěrba.

According to Štěrba, the company is strengthening its production abroad, having eight production plants in Europe and North America. “This is a fundamental topic for us, this year’s production in the Czech Republic versus the world will be 50 to 50, and next year with a high probability America will produce more records than Europe,” said Štěrba.

GZ Media has invested nearly a billion crowns in the US over the last eight years and has other plans. As well as completing the expansion of two of its Memphis and Nashville factories, it will also begin its own production of vinyl records in America. “The estimate is about 300 million investment in the United States this year,” added Štěrba.

Currently, the company is finalizing the acquisition of an American company strategically located between Memphis and Nashville. The Czech company wants to use its premises and premises for the production of raw materials for vinyl production. “It’s quite small, with only ten employees, but has lots of space and land for further expansion. The investment alone is in the order of millions of dollars, but we expect an order of magnitude larger investments in technology, building warehouses and recycling centers. We have a somewhat ambitious but logical goal to place production near production plants so that we don’t transport bulky materials to other parts of the world,” the director explained the plan. Now materials for production are transported to the US from the Czech Republic.

The GZ Media company has a tradition of more than seventy years, currently has about 2,500 employees. In addition to the production of vinyl records, the company also supplies services and printing products in the media, printing and packaging industries to clients around the world.