The press manufacturer experienced a 13% rise in the value of incoming orders to €520m while sales during the half-year period were up 7% to €435m.
Orders within Manroland’s sheetfed sector were up 2% while its web division fared more strongly, with orders up 33%.
Manroland Australasia managing director Steve Dunwell said the local market had been seeing “the lion’s share” of web installations in recent times, with major wins at Hannanprint and Franklin Web.
“Web is picking up all around the world. We are getting the lions share of the market but…. there is in a lot of activity in other major industrial countries. Business is good in Germany and Latin America.”
However, Dunwell conceded that sheetfed remained a challenge.
“We are a bit behind target for sheetfed, but we have the best prospect list we have had for a long while.
He said a number of press orders had been delayed due to “finance reasons” but expected to announce some sheetfed sales within the coming months.
Dunwell added that Manroland’s service, spares and consumables division was a standout, forecasting to have expanded from $10m at the end of last year to $16m by 31 December 2011.
At group level, the company cited growth in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries as catalysts for its improved results, with demand especially strong in China.
As a result, Manroland’s operating result came in at a €25m loss, which was almost half the €46m loss incurred in the previous year.
However, as part of its ongoing cost-reduction program, the company saidstaff numbers would drop to below 6,000 by the end of next year. It currently employs 6,630 worldwide.
According to Gerd Finkbeiner, chief executive at Manroland, the gain in orders and increased sales resulted in a pleasing period for the press manufacturer.
He added: “The strategic alliance with Océ in the digital printing sector will further strengthen Manroland’s leading position in the future.
“With technical innovations like product safety in packaging printing, automation features with robot technology for newspaper presses, and new developments in high-volume commercial web-offset printing, we are showing that print has a bright future.”
Despite a positive first half of 2011, the manufacturer said that it did not expect sales to return to its previous strong showing in 2007.
“We are assuming 75% of the pre-crisis volume in the sheetfed sector and around 60% in the webfed sector. Measured against the boom year, our sheetfed results at present are at approximately 60%, and web almost 50%,” added Finkbeiner.
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