04.04.2019

Liebherr sales exceed €10 billion

The Liebherr group has announced record revenues in 2018, exceeding €10 billion for the first time in its history, although pre-tax profits declined 9.5 percent to €514 million due to an increase in 'non operating expense' and higher finance charges.

The Ehingen Mobile crane division achieved revenues of €2.24 billion, an increase of 9.3 percent on 2017 with significantly higher sales of All Terrain cranes, while it says the market for crawler cranes declined, particularly demand for larger models.

Geographically sales within the European Union and the Americas were higher making up 47.1 percent of the division’s sales. North America accounted for 21.4 percent, Asia/Oceania 15.5 percent, Africa and the Middle East 7.7 percent, Russian and other non EU markets 5.5 percent and South America 2.8 percent.

The Tower crane division posted revenues of €571 million an increase of 6.9 percent on 2017, with the European Union representing 73.1 percent of the total.

The Maritime Cranes division achieved sales of €712 million, a fall of 1.1 percent on the year.

Vertikal Comment

With Bauma build up now underway we will have to come back to the 2018 Liebherr results analysis and add a proper comment then. In the meantime, it is hard not to admire the steady progress that this family owned company achieve year on year. While pre-tax profits are lower, we note than the net profit after tax was marginally higher than last year.