With order intake reaching €454.4m in the second quarter and the order backlog rising to €805.8m at the end of the first half, the Koenig & Bauer Group is on track to meet its targets for 2018. Strong security business and more orders in packaging printing saw order intake rise by 17.2% to €705.3m in the first half of 2018 (2017: €601.9m). Driven by the good Q2 figure of €297.1m, group revenue came to €514.4m but fell short of the previous year’s figure of €538.9m due to the even greater accumulation of delivery dates in the second half of the year. This was also reflected in EBIT, which at €10.6m was lower than in 2017 (€16.3m).
The Sheetfed segment reached a strong order intake of €326.3m, exactly matching the previous year’s figure, which had been influenced by the Print China fair. President and CEO Claus Bolza-Schünemann said, “Substantial growth was achieved in large-format presses. As the world market leader in carton printing, we are benefiting from heightened capital spending of the international packaging printers.”
