Image: Palfinger
The company announced this today, Monday. Palfinger also operates a large factory in Lengau in the Braunau district.
The operating result (EBIT) improved compared to the same period last year from 112.5 to 165 million euros, and the consolidated profit increased from 53.2 to 90.9 million euros.
Sales increased from around 1.6 to 1.8 billion euros. Full order books and implemented price increases contributed to this.
“We had a good output and the price increases were all fully implemented,” said company spokesman Hannes Roither to the Austria Press Agency. “The supply chains have relaxed relatively, except for the trucks, chips and so on, everything has returned to normal.” The group announced that the reduction in costs for freight and materials began to take effect in the third quarter.
However, according to Roither, incoming orders in Europe fell to some extent – in Northern Europe, not in Southern Europe. “Normally we have it the other way around,” said the company spokesman. Germany, France and Scandinavia are “rather reserved”; Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece “are still functioning very well”. The reason: Spain, for example, has significantly fewer problems when it comes to inflation.
“Our largest market is Germany,” added Roither. High interest rates and inflation are causing the construction industry there to weaken. And according to information, Palfinger does 40 percent of its business with the construction industry.
In any case, the company is still confident for the full year 2023: Based on the current order backlog, which extends to the end of the first quarter of 2024, management expects sales of 2.4 billion euros and an EBIT “of more than 200 million euros.” .
In the past year, sales revenue increased by a fifth to 2.23 billion euros – also mainly thanks to price increases and exchange rate effects. However, the operating result fell from 155 to 150.4 million euros due to massive cost increases as a result of the Ukraine war and the delayed effectiveness of our own price increases.
After “absolute record values were achieved this year as a result of a very good product mix and the full effectiveness of the implemented price increases”, the coming year is likely to be more difficult. “A highly challenging economic environment” is forecast for 2024, for which Palfinger is already preparing, according to today’s press release. Geopolitical developments and the challenging macroeconomic conditions continued to represent factors of uncertainty.
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