1st quarter 2018: HOMAG Group’s high order intake continues
Schopfloch, May 16, 2018. In the first quarter of 2018, the HOMAG Group further increased its level of incoming orders, after a very good quarter in the previous year. The world's leading supplier of integrated solutions for production in the woodworking industry and trade continues to invest heavily in digitization.
In the first quarter of 2018, the HOMAG Group's incoming orders increased by 4 percent to € 415 million (previous year: € 401 million). The order backlog was worth € 676 million as at March 31, 2018 (3/31/2017: € 534 million), while sales, at € 295 million, were on a par with the previous year (€ 297 million). Operating EBIT includes a management fee paid to Dürr for the first time. At € 21.9 million, it followed on from the good level of the previous year (€ 22.5 million), while investments in digitization remained high. The figures were impacted by negative exchange-rate effects, without which incoming orders, sales and earnings would have been higher. As at March 31, 2018, the HOMAG Group had 6,484 employees (3/31/2017: 6,083 employees).
"Our order intake was buoyant, especially in northern and eastern Europe as well as the United States", explains CEO Pekka Paasivaara. "As expected, due to the SAP rollout in our largest plant in Schopfloch, we delivered fewer systems in the first quarter. As the year proceeds, we anticipate sales and earnings to grow."
Paasivaara was satisfied with the HOLZ-HANDWERK trade fair, which took place in Nuremberg in March. "Here we showed that we are already offering end-to-end solutions for digitizing production. We presented networked cells, automated guided vehicles and robots for automated manufacturing, among other things. We also impressed our customers with our smart manufacturing execution system", adds Pekka Paasivaara.
Disclaimer
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