The Plansee Group says that it achieved 2017/18 fiscal year consolidated sales of €1.3 billion, an 11% increase year on year compared to €1.17 billion in the previous year.
‘All key sectors and regions that are relevant for the Plansee Group helped achieve the positive sales trend,’ said executive board members Bernhard Schretter and Karlheinz Wex during the annual results press conference in Reutte, Austria. Important drivers reportedly included the European export industry in the automotive, mechanical engineering and aircraft construction sectors, the oil and gas industry in the USA, as well as medical technology and consumer electronics. Regionally, 52% of sales came from Europe, and 24% from the USA and Asia.
‘Competition has grown fiercer, primarily from China,’ added Schretter. ‘Additionally, raw materials prices have risen, and there is growing pressure on sales prices. Nonetheless, we successfully maintained or expanded our position as a preferred partner for our customers through smart utilization of our global manufacturing network.’
In the past fiscal year, Plansee invested €300 million in safeguarding future success. It acquired German tool manufacturer Komet and established materials platform Matmatch. Production was expanded in Balzheim and Lechbruck, Germany, Jyväskylä, Finland, Mysore, India and Reutte, Austria) In Towanda, Pennsylvania, USA, GTP invested heavily in the production of tungsten. The Group also acquired additional shareholdings in Chilean firm Molymet as well as in Ceratizit’s subsidiaries. In Kempten, Germany, Ceratizit acquired 50,000 m2 of real property for the construction of a new logistics center.
Schretter and Wex say that the business environment will remain stable for the current fiscal year, subject to general economic and political conditions, which of difficult to predict. While the trade barriers and restrictions on imports imposed by the USA have not yet directly impacted the business of the Plansee Group, indirect consequences remain a possibility in the medium term, they added. The executive board said that it also saw signs of overheating in some sectors, such as the supply of ore concentrates from Western tungsten mines suffering from capacity bottlenecks.
This story is reprinted from material from Plansee, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
