Thanks to a high order backlog of €953m, HEIDELBERG says it anticipates that the second half of financial year 2024/2025 will be strong, while current developments over the quarters reflect the pronounced seasonality that is to be expected.
This positive outlook is based on strong incoming orders in the first half of the year, which are 7.4% up on the previous year, at €1.273 bn. Sales of €915m were within expectations, due to purchasing restraint ahead of the drupa trade show (previous year: €1,092m).
“Heidelberg is starting a strong second half of the year. We are now ramping up the utilisation of our production capacities so we can work through our order backlog in the third and fourth quarters quickly and profitably,” says Jürgen Otto, CEO. “The forecast sales volume for new machines has already been almost entirely met with orders and our production operations are running at full capacity. We can be confident that we will achieve our targets for the year.”
The company reports it is still particularly strong in and around China. Incoming orders in the Asia Pacific region recorded the clearest growth in the first six months of the current financial year, increasing by approximately 10%.
Based on strong order levels, the company anticipates a clear increase in sales in the second half of the current financial year in particular. When adjusted for special items, the EBITDA margin in the first six months of financial year 2024/2025 was 3.4% (same period of previous year: 9.2%) and was impacted in particular by lower sales in Q1 and by expenses related to drupa. Strict cost discipline had a positive impact in the reporting period. This is another reason why EBITDA improved significantly compared to the first quarter from -€9m to €40m. During the period under review, there were no special items that require adjustment. Compared to the same period of the previous year (€ 33 million), the result after taxes after six months dropped in line with the lower adjusted EBITDA to -€35m. In the second quarter, the result after taxes was positive, at €7m (same quarter of previous year: €23m).
Compared to the same period of the previous year, the packaging solutions segment was able to increase incoming orders in the first half of the year by around 9.7% to €675m, thereby contributing approximately 53% to the total volume. In the print solutions segment, incoming orders rose in the same period by around 5.5% to €594m.
