Heidelberg has started the new financial year 2024/2025 with growth in incoming orders following a successful drupa.
The company’s incoming orders of €701m ($1.287bn) in the first three months exceeded its expectations and rose from the previous year of €591m. The company says its best order value since 2016 forms a strong basis for the entire financial year with a high order backlog of €923m.
Europe at plus 25 per cent, and the Americas at plus 30 per cent, recorded particularly strong growth. Asia delivered only slightly weaker growth as the previous year had been particularly strong due to Print China.
Jürgen Otto, chief executive officer of Heidelberg, says, “The strong recovery in our order intake allows us to look to the full financial year with great confidence. The pleasing order backlog from the drupa trade fair will lead to rising sales in the following quarters compared to Q1. At the same time, we are working on our cost situation and personnel costs, which are generally too high.”
As expected, sales in the first quarter fell were below previous year’s level due to the reluctance to invest ahead of drupa. The adjusted operating result (EBITDA) fell by around €51mto €–9m compared to the adjusted figure for the same quarter of the previous year.
Tania von der Goltz, chief financial officer, says, “Heidelberg felt the after-effects of the slump in orders from the third quarter of 2023/2024 in the first quarter. Despite the expected improvements in sales and earnings in the second half of the year, we will continue to work on our costs and efficiency. We expect to achieve the previous year’s result in the current year.”
In the print solutions segment, Heidelberg recorded strong drupa-related growth in incoming orders of around 21 percent. However, sales declined by around 23 per cent from April to June due to the low order intake in the third quarter of the previous year. Incoming orders in the packaging solutions segment improved by 17 per cent, while sales in this segment fell by 29 per cent as expected.
