Over the full year, orders received groe by 10.4% to EUR2,067m, from EUR1,872m in 2007. Full year sales rose 20.2% to EUR2,102.5, from EUR1,749m. Discounting currency changes, sales growth would have been around 24.3%. Ignoring capital gains from a series of real estate sale in 2007, operating profit for the full year was EUR248.7m, from EUR174.7m; margins were 11.8% of sales this year, from 10% last year.
In the last quarter, the company felt the affect of the global economic downturn. President and CEO Pekka Lundmark said, “it was clear throughout the year that it would be only a matter of time before the turbulence in the financial market that had already started in the summer of 2007 would start to take a toll on the real economy. After a typically slow summer there was a slight pickup in demand in the early fall, but a sudden and abrupt drop in demand hit us in November. Almost in a synchronised manner, customers all over the world and in all industries put investments on hold, taking a wait-and-see attitude.”
Orders received in the last three months of 2008 fell 13% to EUR409.6m, from EUR471m. Across business segments, service orders rose by 4.5%, but standard lifting fell 8.3% and heavy lifting fell 29.6%. Order intake earlier in the year kept the company’s overall backlog up, at EUR836.3m, up 10.3% on 2007 figures.
