31.10.2016

Tough half for Kobe

Kobe Steel has reported a tough first half for its Construction Equipment division which now includes Kobelco cranes.

While we can no longer see any financial details of the Kobelco Cranes business the company has said that “unit sales of crawler cranes declined, compared with the same period last year, due to lower demand mainly in Southeast Asia.”

Revenues at the Kobelco Construction division were ¥156.1 billion ($1.49 billion) 13.9 percent down on last year, although much of this was due to lower sales of general construction equipment partly caused by the company tightening up is credit policy and payment terms. The division also reported a pre-tax loss of ¥500 million {$4.8 million) compared to a ¥1.9 billion ($181.2 million) profit at this point last year.