Jungheinrich financial results

Jungheinrich continued to grow in the first nine months of 2018. Revenue and incoming orders increased considerably year on year and point to another successful financial year.

Volker Hues, CFO of Jungheinrich AG, says: "Despite geopolitical shifts, both the market and our business are seeing strong growth. We are benefiting in particular from our European core market and pleasing market demand in the logistics systems business. Incoming orders, revenue and EBIT have all grown year on year. The dramatic increases in the prices of raw materials, high collective agreements in Germany and supply difficulties with certain materials do, however, pose a challenge, and unfortunately have an effect on earnings.

"As a result of the overall positive trend, we are increasing our forecast for 2018. Incoming orders are set to bring in between EUR3.85 billion (USD4.4 billion) and EUR3.95 billion (USD4.5 billion), and group revenue will be in the range of EUR3.65 billion (USD4.2 billion) to EUR3.75 billion (USD4.3 billion)."

Hues adds that Jungheinrich's order books are full, and with six months' worth of orders on hand, the company is confident about the fourth quarter and the upcoming year.

The global market volume for materials handling equipment increased by 14% year on year from January to September 2018. This corresponds to 139,000 units. The driving force behind the increase in market volume was demand in the Asian market, primarily in China. The market volume in Western Europe increased by 12%. Demand in Eastern Europe increased by 21%, thanks to Poland.

More than half of the strong year-on-year growth in North America was attributable to a significant increase in orders for IC engine-powered counterbalance trucks.

The warehousing equipment product segment recorded global growth of 17% or 78,000 trucks, with over 40% of this attributable each to Asia and Europe.

Half of the 11% increase in global market volumes of battery-powered counterbalance trucks was driven by higher orders from Asia. Over 40% of the global increase in demand for IC engine-powered trucks was also due to significantly higher orders in this region. In all three product segments, demand in the Chinese market was the driver for high growth rates across Asia.

Incoming orders in the new truck business, which includes orders for both new forklifts and trucks for short-term rental, totalled 100,600, up 9% on the corresponding figure in the previous year (92,100 units). This was due to very high demand in Europe, Jungheinrich's core market.

The 10% increase in group revenue against the previous year reflects the good order situation, with the biggest rise reported in the Mail Order division, up more than 30%.

In addition to staffing costs increasing significantly and raw materials prices exceeding expectations, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was negatively impacted by costs for the industry's most important trade fair, CeMAT, and supply bottlenecks accompanied by price increases from some suppliers.

Last week, rival KION also reported positive results, including an 11.8% rise in its order intake in the first three quarters of the year.