Mr. Golden: Smith & Wesson is a 157-year-old, U.S.-based company headquartered in Springfield, Mass. Most people know us for our firearms, the original core business of the company. We are the largest U.S. manufacturer of handguns, and we may be the largest manufacturer of handguns in the world. However, we have expanded far beyond that original base. Today we deliver a full portfolio of firearms into marketing channels, including retail, law enforcement, military, federal government and international. In addition, we've recently diversified the company by entering into the very fast-growing global category of facility and perimeter security through the acquisition of Universal Safety Response, a leader in the field. Smith & Wesson is now positioned as a global provider of products and services for security and protection.
TWST: When you look at your area of operation, what does the competitive arena look like with regard to firearms and perimeter security?
Mr. Golden: Our competitors within firearms vary, depending on whether we are selling into the retail channel or selling into professional markets, e.g., law enforcement, federal government. They also vary depending on whether we're marketing pistols, revolvers or other firearms. We clearly hold the leadership position in revolvers. Competing names you will see in the handgun category include Glock, Ruger, Taurus and Sig Sauer to name a few. A large number are European manufacturers, and we see them compete in most market channels. We remain successful in the space, however, because of our high-quality and strong brand name, as well as the success of our M&P line of polymer pistol products, launched about five years ago.
In the last few years, we have entered and are very actively competing in the long gun market, which includes hunting rifles and tactical rifles. Other names here include Remington, Beretta and others. Within hunting rifles, our Thompson/Center Arms products own a large share of the black powder, specialty hunting market. The brand is highly regarded by consumers. In addition, this past summer we launched several new products in the hunting rifle space that expand our addressable market by entering new product categories, like bolt-action rifles.
Tactical rifles represent the other long gun category we address, and we sell tactical rifles for consumer and law enforcement use, as well as fully automatic rifles for potential military applications. We expect to soon be pursuing potential business from the Defense Department, specifically the replacement for the M4, today's standard-issue military rifle made by Colt. We expect to go up against a broad range of competition, including Colt, which owns the current contract and is headquartered in Connecticut. Others will likely include FN, which is owned by the Belgium government, and H&K, which is a German company. We feel we are very well positioned to compete based on our very high-quality product, which has updated features not found on today's M4.
On the perimeter security side, we have a unique business proposition and business model, which is not really duplicated by anyone else. At the core of our systems, we have a propriety active barrier product called the GRAB. Around this we can provide a full suite of turn-key solutions in the space. We work closely with security managers at our customer locations, and in the process we engineer and develop a custom solution, and then send our own trained personnel to assemble and install the product. We train our customers' security personnel, we certify the system, and we provide ongoing maintenance. We really don't have a single competitor that has this wide range of capabilities in perimeter security or the proprietary GRAB product, which is a core part of many systems we design and install. It's very innovative, and we believe that's why we are growing that business at such a very aggressive clip.
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