Third quarter results for Heidelberg show sales are lower than the previous year, due to series production ramp ups, but the company claims it are still on target for the year.
Both sales for the quarter and total sales for the three quarters so far this year were down from the previous year. Sales for Q3 finished at €608m compared to last year’s results, which came in at €640m. The total sales for the three quarters came in at €1.68bn, where last year’s results equaled to €1.802bn.
Heidelberg says the new presses are taking longer to get out of the factory, which is why third quarter sales figures are down, despite what it says was a successful drupa.
The press giant pointed to incoming orders for the three quarters, which were 4.5 per cent higher than last year, €1.99bn compared to €1.9bn. Heidelberg says these numbers demonstrate the keen interest customers are showing in the digitisation solutions from Heidelberg.
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The order backlog was up by 26 per cent, coming in at €739m compared to last year’s at €576m. Heidelberg says these results give the company a good platform for achieving the significant sales growth planned in the fourth quarter.
Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberg says, “The improvements in results in the third quarter show that Heidelberg is on the right course to achieve sustainable profitability. We anticipate we will further increase our annual profit with a strong final quarter.”
EBITDA and EBIT increased in the quarter compared to the previous year’s figures. After nine months, these key indicators were still down in the previous year’s figures due to sales and a positive non-recurring effect of €19m from the initial consolidation of the PSG company in the previous year, and trade show costs of costs of approximately of €10m.
Heidelberg says EBITDA excluding special items improved to €49m in the third quarter where the previous year was €40m. The total figure after nine months was €94m, last year it stood at €119m. At €-2m, special items in the quarter under review equaled the figure for the same quarter of the previous year, €-2m.
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