Mueller Water Products Inc

The United States and Canadian markets for water infrastructure and flow control products are very competitive. See “Item 1A. RISK FACTORS-Strong competition could adversely affect prices and demand for our products and services, which would adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.” There are only a few competitors for most of our product and service offerings. Many of our competitors are well-established companies with products that have strong brand recognition. We consider our installed base, product quality, customer service level, brand recognition, innovation, distribution and technical support to be competitive strengths.

The competitive environment for most of Water Flow Solutions’ valve products is mature and many end users are slow to transition to brands other than their historically preferred brands making it difficult to increase market share. We believe our valves enjoy strong competitive positions based primarily on the extent of their installed base, product quality, specified position and brand recognition. Our principal competitors for iron gate valves are McWane, Inc. and American Cast Iron Pipe Company. The primary competitors for our service brass products are The Ford Meter Box Company, Inc. and A.Y. McDonald Mfg. Co. Many service brass valves are interchangeable among different manufacturers. For our specialty valve products such as butterfly, plug, and check valves, our principal competitors are DeZURIK, Val-Matic and McWane, Inc.

The markets for products and services sold by Water Management Solutions are very competitive, with some mature products, and many end users are slow to transition to brands other than their historically preferred brands. We believe that our fire hydrants enjoy a strong competitive position primarily based on the extent of their installed base, product quality, specified position and brand recognition. Our principal competitors for fire hydrants are McWane, Inc. and American Cast Iron Pipe Company. We believe the markets for many of our repair products are open to product innovation. For our pipe repair products, we believe our brand names, including Krausz® and HYMAX®, are generally associated with premium products as a result of our patented technology and superior features. Our current marketing strategy is primarily focused on repair, joining and restraining of water infrastructure piping systems, which consists of cast iron, ductile iron and plastic pipe. Our repair solutions work well with each of these piping systems. Our primary competitors in the repair market are Romac Industries, Smith Blair, Viking Johnson, AVK Group, JCM Industries, and Georg Fisher Ltd.

The gas repair products we sell are primarily used on distribution lines. Our primary competitors for these products are Smith Blair, T.D. Williamson, and A.Y. McDonald. Water Management Solutions also sells water metering products and systems, primarily in the United States. We believe a substantial portion of this market is in the process of transitioning from manually read meters to electronically read meters; however, we expect this transition to be relatively slow and that many end users will be reluctant to adopt brands other than their historically preferred brand. Our principal competitors are Sensus, Neptune Technology Group Inc., Badger Meter, Inc., Itron, Inc., and Master Meter, Inc. We also sell pressure control valves and pressure loggers through our Singer Valve and i2O products. The primary competitors for these products are Cla-Val, Watts, OCV, Ross Valve, Bermad and Halma. Additionally, Water Management Solutions sells water leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services in North America, the United Kingdom and select countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with our primary markets being the United States and Canada. The worldwide market for leak detection and pipe condition assessment is highly fragmented with numerous competitors. Our more significant competitors are Pure Technologies Ltd., Gutermann AG and Syrinix Ltd.