For Konecranes’ standard lifting segment, year-on-year in the second quarter, sales fell from EUR203.9m to EUR168.2m, operating profit fell from EUR34.9m to EUR14.5m, orders received fell from EUR244.8m to EUR141.4m and order book value dropped from EUR387.8m to EUR244.6m. Year-on-year for the first six months of 2009, sales fell from EUR372.3m to EUR346.3m, operating profit was down from EUR61.7m to EUR35.8m, orders received fell from EUR467m to EUR273.9m and order book value dropped from EUR387.8m to EUR244.6m.
For heavy lifting, second quarter results saw sales down from EUR144.8m to EUR127.9m, operating profit down from EUR12.6m to EUR10.2m, orders received down from EUR198.4m to EUR67.8m and order book value dropping from EUR528m to EUR357.9m. For the year-to-date, sales were down from EUR279m to EUR257.6m, operating profit down from EUR20.3m to EUR20.2m, orders received down from EUR410.5m to EUR201.5m and order book value down from EUR528m to EUR357.9m.
The service segment saw sales drop from EUR180.5m to EUR169.5m, operating profit fall from EUR23.5m to EUR18.2m, orders received down from EUR172.6m to EUR126.4m and order book value down from EUR140.2m to EUR993.9m. The six month period between January and June saw sales down from EUR346.5m to EUR339.2m, operating profit fall from EUR45.7m to EUR37m, orders received down from EUR328.8m to EUR252m and order book value down from EUR140.2m to EUR93.9m.
“The challenging market environment that the material handling industry has been facing since the latter half of last year, continued through the second quarter of 2009,” said president and CEO Pekka Lundmark.
“Even though there are some differences between various regions in the world, and between different product segments, one could roughly estimate that close to half of the global equipment market has disappeared when compared to the peak year 2008. The services market is also affected by low capacity utilization within our main customer segments, but to a much lesser extent than the equipment market.
“This is an exceptionally tough situation for all the players, and will most likely lead to certain structural reshaping of our industry.
“Our response consists of three parts. First, we adjust our capacity and cost structure to the lower demand. We are not relying on fast recovery in demand. Instead, we intend to have, by the end of the year, a cost base that enables us to deliver a reasonable financial result also should the current low demand continue throughout 2010. Second, we continue to invest in R&D and information systems to further widen the scope of our product and service offering, and to improve our productivity. And third, we continue to expand to new geographical territories where we are not yet strongly enough present, while at the same time staying open for acquisition opportunities. Our strong balance sheet is a key asset that will allow us to continue to invest also during the recession. We believe that this strategy will help us to achieve a further enhanced competitiveness for the time when the market recovers.”
