Following slack demand in the final quarter of 2008, the first quarter brought little relief to the printing press sector, reports KBA. The group’s order intake totalled €219.5mn, a drop of 40.7 per cent from last year’s figure of €370.3mn.
However, this was better than the industry average, largely thanks to the company’s broad product range “addressing both volume and niche markets”. While orders for web and special presses were down 28.7 per cent at €142.2mn (2008: €199.3mn), the knock-on effects of the financial and economic crisis caused demand for sheet-fed presses to shrink by more than half to €77.3mn (2008: €171mn).
The impact on sales, which declined by 27 per cent to €220.2mn (2008: €301.7m), was equally disparate. A relatively moderate drop of 9.1 per cent to €143.4mn (2008: €157.7mn) in the web and special press division contrasted with a plunge of 46.7 per cent to €76.8m (2008: €144mn) in the sheet-fed division.
The group order backlog of €500.8mn at the end of the quarter was roughly the same as at the beginning, but was 41.8 per cent below the corresponding figure for the previous year, of €860.5mn. Web and special presses accounted for almost four-fifths of unfilled orders.
Domestic sales were down 24.2 per cent at €36.4mn (2008: €48mn), but exports also fell, from 84.1 per cent in 2008 to 83.5 per cent of total output. The proportion of sales generated in the rest of Europe dropped to 36.8 per cent, well below the customary 50-60 per cent. This was primarily due to downturns in key markets like Italy, Spain and the UK. Asia and the Pacific contributed 16.7 per cent, North America 13.9 per cent, Africa and Latin America 16.1 per cent of group sales.
KBA president and CEO Helge Hansen says: “We are currently in the process of adjusting capacities to a smaller market volume, and this will materially improve our profitability by the end of the year. The total package aims for savings of several hundred million euros in personnel and material costs by 2011.”
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