Plansee says that weak demand from its key industries led to a 6% decline in sales in the past 2020/21 fiscal year from €38 bn to €1.29 bn.
However, while industries such as automotive, mechanical engineering and aviation declined due to the economic situation, Plansee recorded increasing demand from the semiconductor industry, consumer electronics and medical technology. Sales volumes fell by 9%, but due to a higher-value product mix, average selling prices increased compared to the previous year.
‘We have successfully overcome one of the biggest crises in our company's history, the corona pandemic,’ said Karlheinz Wex, spokesman of the board. ‘100 years ago, the Plansee Group was successful with tungsten wires for light bulbs; today, our biggest success driver is the semiconductor industry. Although markets and applications have changed, sometimes significantly, over the decades, the focus of the Plansee Group has always remained the same: the powder metallurgical processing of the materials molybdenum and tungsten.’
This story uses material from Plansee, with editorial changes made by Materials Today.
