08.12.2010

Kobelco Cranes sales fall

Kobelco Cranes has released its half year results to the end of September with negative figures across the board compared to the same period in 2009.

Total revenues were down 18 percent to 23.4 billion yen (£180 million), while operating income was down almost 86 percent and net income down 92.6 percent compared with the same period in 2009.

Kobelco said that it sold 240 new cranes in the period, a decrease of 11 percent over the 270 sold in the first half of 2009 and blamed the stagnant market over the past two years since the global financial crisis.

It said: “The U.S. and European markets have declined considerably and the worldwide market continues to be weak. Furthermore, the rise in the value of the yen has created a highly competitive environment.”

On a more positive note it said that there is steady demand in some areas, such as India. In its domestic Japanese crane market however, demand is sluggish due to uncertainty about the future and fewer projects. As a result, demand for both new crawler cranes and wheel cranes has been low.

Domestic consolidated sales decreased 12.3 percent, in comparison to the same period last year, to 9 billion yen, while overseas sales were down 21.2 percent to 14.4 billion yen.

Kobelco says China is currently the largest crawler crane market and in September it established a joint-venture production and sales company, Chengdu Kobelco Cranes Co with local construction equipment manufacturer Sichuan Chengdu Chenggong Construction Machinery Co with manufacturing expected to start in August 2012.

Kobelco says it has the largest share of the Indian market and established Kobelco Cranes India Pvt. Ltd in August by upgrading an existing representative office and local manufacturing will start in October 2011.

In Japan, demand for crawler cranes decreased around 31 percent over the same period last year. RT crane demand increased around 24 percent over the same period. The company continued to strengthen the mobile crane business centred on further market penetration of the city-conscious crane, the Panther-X series.

Over the next six months the company says “although there are both strong and weak regions, worldwide demand for cranes is anticipated to remain low in both the domestic and overseas markets and may even decline more. In addition, the future is still highly uncertain due to the further appreciation of the yen and users’ financial anxiety brought about by foreign currency exchange rates.”