KUKA continues to grow profitably
- Orders received up significantly by 27.4% to €2.8 billion
- Growth of 44.5% from Q4/14 to Q4/15
- Sales revenue up 41.5% to record level of €3.0 billion
- EBITDA up significantly by 39.8% to €259.1 million
- EBIT up from €141.8 million in 2014 to €194.3 million before purchase price allocation for Swisslog
- Guidance for 2015 achieved
KUKA Group looks back on a successful financial year, having grown substantially in 2015. Both Robotics and Systems contributed to the positive financial figures, as did Swisslog, whose results were consolidated for the first time. KUKA continued to profit from the strong global demand for robots and automation solutions. In detail, KUKA Group ended the 2015 financial year as follows (preliminary figures):
The preliminary volume of orders received totaled €2,838.9 million in the past financial year. Orders received even topped the previous year’s high figure (2014: €2,229.0 million) by 27.4%, thereby approaching the 3 billion euro threshold. The development of orders received without Swisslog was also up on the previous year, and totaled €2,287.1 million. The divisions profited from orders placed by the international automotive industry and general industry.
The Robotics division saw a 10.6% increase in orders received to €891.2 million (2014: €805.5 million). The strong demand was supported primarily by the general industry and service customer segments. In general industry, the result rose by 18.8% to €374.2 million (2014: €315.0 million). Service business registered an increase of 9.1% and automotive 3.6%. Orders received at Systems totaled €1,428.1 million. This corresponds to a slight decline of -1.9% on the previous year’s result of €1,456.0 million. One reason for this is that the very strong development in USA was unable to compensate fully for the weaker development in Europe. In addition, the volume of orders received decreased by around €50 million on account of the deconsolidation of HLS and the Tools and Dies business unit. Orders received by the Swisslog division totaled €551.8 million in 2015. Swisslog was not consolidated in the previous year.
Preliminary sales revenue of KUKA Group totaled €2,965.9 million in the 2015 financial year. This was 41.5% (excluding Swisslog: 11.9%) above the previous year’s result (2014: €2,095.7 million). The Robotics division recorded sales of €909.6 million, up 9.0% on the previous year (2014: €834.6 million). The Systems division posted sales revenue of €1,471.7 million. This is equivalent to an increase of 14.5% (2014: €1,285.6 million). The strong development in the automotive and aerospace sectors in USA had a particularly positive effect here. Swisslog achieved sales revenue of €620.8 million in the 2015 financial year.
The book-to-bill ratio, i.e. orders received in relation to sales revenues, was below 1 at Group level in the 2015 financial year, coming in at 0.96.
KUKA Group’s preliminary order backlog amounted to €1,639.0 million at the end of 2015. This corresponds to a decrease of -3.7% on the previous year’s result of €1,702.5 million, which already included Swisslog. The Robotics division reported an order backlog of €233.4 million, down 3.4%. The order backlog at Systems totaled €923.2 million in the 2015 financial year, which also represented a decline of -3.4% on the previous year (2014: €955.4 million). The new Swisslog division reported an order backlog of €491.0 million in 2015 (2014: €517.2 million).
Not taking the purchase price allocation for Swisslog into account, the preliminary earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) came in at €194.3 million (2014: €141.8 million) with an EBIT margin of 6.6%. After deduction of the integration costs of around €8 million, the EBIT margin was 6.8%. If the expenditure for purchase price allocation is taken into consideration, the preliminary EBIT was €135.6 million, corresponding to an EBIT margin of 4.6%. The EBIT includes book profits in the low double-digit million range from the sale of HLS and the Tools and Dies business unit. The EBIT at Robotics totaled €100.2 million, constituting an improvement of 12.7% on the previous year. The EBIT of the Systems division, in particular, rose by 43.0% from €80.2 million in 2014 to €114.7 million in 2015. The EBIT margin at Systems was 7.8%. The drivers of the margin development at Systems were the strong demand and the associated high capacity utilization coupled with the book profits and the successful implementation of the efficiency measures. Excluding the book profits, the EBIT margin was 6.9%. Swisslog achieved an EBIT of
-€45.9 million including €58.7 million expenditure relating to the purchase price allocation. Before purchase price allocation, the division reported a preliminary EBIT of €12.8 million, corresponding to an EBIT margin of 2.1%. Without the integration costs of about €8 million included in the EBIT for 2015, the EBIT margin was 3.4%. The EBIT margin exceeded 3% in both the third and fourth quarters. This reflects the successful integration of Swisslog into KUKA Group.
The number of employees in KUKA Group as at December 31, 2015 remained virtually identical to the previous year’s figure. In 2015, KUKA had a total of 12,300 employees (2014: 12,102), including 2,555 at Swisslog. The number of employees at Robotics rose by 16.1% to 4,232. The workforce has expanded in all areas, i.e. automotive, research and development, general industry and service. In the Systems division the number of employees fell by -11.4% year-on-year from 5,810 to 5,146. This is due to the sale of HLS Engineering Group and the Tools and Dies business unit.
“2015 was a successful year, especially through the integration of Swisslog and our focus on industry 4.0.” Says Dr. Till Reuter, CEO of KUKA AG. “We have driven the digitization of manufacturing processes. The intelligent production will be a key issue in 2016. “.
This press release contains the preliminary figures. The complete 2015 financial statements and the outlook for 2016 will be presented at the financial results press conference on March 22, 2016 in Munich.
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