Sales for 2011 Better Than Expected

In the third quarter of 2011, order bookings rose by 29%. Domestic orders rose by 33%, export bookings by 27%. Overall, demand was up by 74% during the first nine months of 2011. Domestic customers’ demand was up by 71% on a like-for-like basis, while the corresponding figure for customers abroad was 76%.

“The increase in order bookings for the ongoing year continues to be excellent”, confirms Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, Executive Director at the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association). Nonetheless, he adds, the growth dynamic is slowly decelerating on a quarterly comparison. Following months of two- to three-figure growth rates, he continues, a normalisation trend had been foreseeable. Since the beginning of the year’s second half, the figures have been reflecting the baseline effect of a significantly stronger reference period over the course of 2010.

The good order situation has once again upped the level of capacity utilisation. The most recent figure of 95.5%, for October of this year, means companies are operating at well-nigh full capacity. A comparison with the preceding year, when ca-pacity utilisation was averaging 75.4%, vividly illustrates the challenge the sector is facing. The sector’s total workforce came to 66,865 employees in Septem-ber of this year, 4.4% up on the preceding year’s figure.

The official production result for Germany’s machine tool industry, according to the provisional figures, rose by 36% in the first nine months of the current year. “Over the year as a whole, we look like doing better than hitherto expected”, explains Schäfer. The VDW, he continues, is now predicting production output to grow by one-third for 2011.

However, in view of the continuing uncertainties on the financial markets, and not least the euro’s debt crisis, companies’ expectations for the months ahead are gloomier across e board. “These exogenous factors are superimposed on the normal cyclical demand trend”, reports VDW-Chef Schäfer. But, he continues, the effects on turnover developments in the various companies will depend very closely on the structure of their product portfolio and their customer base. For vendors of customised machines, in particular, and those operating in project business with long lead times, the high order backlog of most recently almost ten months, together with the continuing need for capital investment in the automotive industry and among its system suppliers, plus strong demand from energy utilities and aircraft manufactur-ers, all combine to produce a stabilising effect.