Source: Knorr-Bremse
Munich — Knorr-Bremse AG, the global market leader for braking systems and a leading supplier of other safety-critical rail and commercial vehicle systems, today published its results for the first half of 2019.
Ralph Heuwing, CFO of Knorr-Bremse AG: “After a highly successful start to 2019, we posted the best half-year revenues in our company’s history despite a difficult market environment and one of the best half-year earnings. Our two divisions complement each other ideally in regional performance and continued to gain market share. This confirms Knorr-Bremse’s special business model. Earnings are also substantially higher than in the prior year. Overall, we are highly satisfied with the company’s performance and confirm our guidance for the full year. We are nevertheless taking precautionary measures with regard to efficiency and cost control in order to safeguard our competitiveness and profitability.”
Dynamic performance
In the first half of 2019, Knorr-Bremse continued to benefit from its strong market position and the international megatrends of Urbanization, Digitization, Eco-Efficiency and Automated Driving.
The Knorr-Bremse Group’s incoming orders increased by 1.8% in the first half of fiscal year 2019 to €3,581 million, compared with €3,517 million in the first half of 2018. The order book reached €4,542 million, compared with €4,372 million at the end of the first half of 2018. At a high level of nearly eight months of revenue, the forward order book paves the way for solid business performance over the remainder of the year.
Knorr-Bremse continued the successful trend from the first quarter of 2019 through to the end of the first half year. Revenues rose in the first half of 2019 by 8.4% to €3,602 million, compared with €3,322 million in the same period of 2018. Both divisions and all key regions contributed to the strong revenue growth. The aftermarket share of total revenues was unchanged at 32% in the first half of 2019 (prior year adjusted for activities sold in the meantime).
With its focus on rail and commercial vehicles, Knorr-Bremse’s resilience sets itself clearly apart from other industrial goods markets and in particular the automotive sector.
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