09.06.2015

Tough year for Liebherr

Liebherr has published its full year results, which show declines in both revenues and profits.

Total revenue for the group fell 1.6 percent - as estimated in December – to €8.82 billion, at the same time pre-tax profits dropped just over 11 percent to €501 million.

Looking at the three crane divisions, mobile crane sales fell 4.1 percent compared to 2013, to €1.99 billion, although unit shipments edged up on last year, to just over 1,500 units. The lower revenues were due to higher sales of small to mid-sized cranes, while shipments of larger units declined.

The German market was roughly flat, while the UK market was one of the company’s top performers as was North America where Liebherr saw a sharp increase in All Terrain and crawler crane shipments, including 50 units of its 300 tonne LR1300 crawler cranes. Sales in Japan also improved significantly, while shipments to Russia fell sharply.

The Tower Crane division had a better year with revenues up 4.5 percent to €414 million, with 880 cranes delivered, giving the company a claimed 20 percent market share. In addition to the regular tower cranes the division shipped 37 mobile self-erecting models.

Finally the Maritime crane operation saw sales jump 18.9 percent to €988 million. As a result the overall sales of Liebherr cranes totalled €3.394 billion.

The company said that it expects a modest improvement in 201, with total revenues expected to get back above €9 billion again.

Vertikal Comment

Liebherr is like a machine, focused clearly on the longer term it continues to make relentless progress and looks to build stronger market positions through product development, improved service and customer support. This year’s downturn hardly caused a blip or a flutter, as the focus moves on to this year and beyond.

2015 could be an interesting year with sales of larger cranes likely to remain in the doldrums, as long as the oil & gas industry cuts back, and projects in parts of the developing world are slowed. In spite of this we would expect the mobile crane operation to recover most of the ground it lost in 2014, at least in terms of revenues, while unit sales should go higher again.