The general crisis in the automotive industry continued to slow down the development of the supplier Preh GmbH in the 2024 financial year: The company achieved sales of around € 1.53 billion, around 9% below the previous year’s figure of € 1.69 billion. EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) amounted to € 64 million. In order to stabilize the earnings situation and improve competitiveness, the specialist for Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) and e-mobility components launched an extensive restructuring program in the summer of 2024. In particular it provides for the reduction of 420 jobs at the headquarters in Bad Neustadt. In view of the continued weakness of the automotive industry and the numerous uncertainties caused by the new US customs policy and geostrategic risks, Preh CEO Zhengxin “Charlie” Cai expects conditions to remain difficult in 2025, even though new business has picked up again in recent weeks.
Due to the restructuring measures, the number of employees at Preh Group has decreased: At the end of 2024, Preh employed 6,968 people worldwide (2023: 7,415 employees). The number of employees in Bad Neustadt was 1,585 at the end of 2024, compared to 1,745 in 2023. The majority of the job cuts at the headquarters have been achieved through a voluntary redundancy program (300 employees) and a part of them has left the company by the end of 2024. Natural fluctuation and early retirement schemes counted for about 70 employees. The program to cut a total of 420 jobs will end this month with the compulsory redundancies of around 50 employees.
“The start to the 2025 financial year has fallen short of our planning,” says Charlie Cai. “However, we have also recently gained substantial new business. Especially in such an industry crisis, this makes once again clear that Preh’s technology provides for a strong market position.”
Overall, in the first quarter of 2025 business performance varied across the different product areas. While the HMI business is developing comparatively robustly, the market for e-mobility products is recovering still slowly. In order to buck the challenging market environment, Preh has launched a program of measures to optimize the product development process. The aim is to simplify the organizational structure and leverage efficiency and cost-cutting potential.
CEO Charlie Cai about the current year: “We will do our homework in terms of cost discipline and agility; however, the world economy faces an unprecedented tariff bullying from the U.S. and it is difficult to foresee its real impact on us. Generally, Preh has a good perspective based on our excellent customer relations that allowed us to win new contracts well above 2 billion € TTO (total turnover during product lifetime) in the last year. This secures our mid-term growth – given that the automotive market will stabilize again”, says Cai.
SOURCE: Preh
