KUKA on track: increases sales revenues and profitability

• Guidance for 2013 achieved
• High level of orders received, increased sales revenues and profitability
  - Orders received almost unchanged at € 1,882 million (-0.4 percent)
  - Sales revenues climb to € 1,775 million (+2.0 percent)
  - Order backlog at year end of € 1 billion (+9.0 percent), guaranteeing high capacity utilization in 2014
• Profitability rises faster than sales revenues: EBIT € 120 million (+9.7 percent) and EBIT margin 6.8 percent

 
The KUKA Group showed positive business performance in fiscal year 2013 in both of its divisions. Overall, KUKA benefited from the continuing global trend in robot-based automation.
According to the preliminary results, the KUKA Group beat last year’s figures in terms of sales revenues and earnings before interest and taxes. Orders received reached nearly the same high level as the previous year. In detail, the KUKA Group ended the 2013 financial year as follows (preliminary figures):

The preliminary orders received came in at a stable, high level of € 1,881.9 million, just shy of the last year’s record level, which represents a slight decline of 0.4 percent from the € 1,889.6 million in 2012. € 793.5 came from the Robotics division; this is 1.2 percent lower than the previous year’s figure of € 803.1 million. Orders from the automotive industry in 2013 for this division fell by 14.2 percent to € 318.3 million from € 371.0 million the year prior. The year-over-year decline is primarily attributable to customer investment cycles of model launches in this industry. The Robotics division took in € 330.9 million worth of orders from general industry, exceeding last year’s number by 12.2 percent (2012: € 294.9 million). A large framework contract with Siemens Healthcare had a very positive impact here. Orders received in the service segment rose last year by 5.2 percent to € 144.3 million from € 137.2 million in 2012.
The Systems division also received a high level of orders in the year just ended. Supported by the strong demand from the automotive industry, the division took in orders received worth € 1,111.6 million in 2013, which was just 0.3 percent below the prior year’s total of 
€ 1,115.1 million.

The preliminary figures for KUKA Group sales revenues showed an increase of 2.0 percent in 2013 to € 1,774.5 million from the € 1,739.2 million in 2012. The Robotics division achieved sales revenues totaling € 754.1 million, up 1.5 percent from the € 742.6 million reported in 2012. The Systems division posted sales revenues of € 1,045.9 million, 2.0 percent higher than last year’s € 1,025.3 million. 

The book-to-bill ratio remained above 1 and came in at 1.06 at the Group level in 2013, which shows an increase in the order backlog.

The Group’s preliminary order backlog amounted to € 991.6 million at the end of 2013. This represents an increase of 9 percent compared to the € 909.4 million reported for the period ending December 31, 2012 and breaks down into an order backlog of € 280.7 million for the Robotics division (+12.9 percent) and € 714.4 million for the Systems division (+7.3 percent) without considering framework contracts from the automotive industry. This guarantees that capacity utilization will be high in the current financial year.
With the global trend towards robot-based automation, KUKA expects to see demand continue to grow in China. KUKA Robotics responded quickly to this development, opening a brand new plant in Shanghai last December with an assembly capacity of roughly 3,000 robots per year. This can be expanded to 5,000. KUKA Robotics plans to use this site to better cater to customers in Asia with faster and more flexible services.

Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the fiscal year just ended totaled € 120.4 million and were significantly higher than the € 109.8 million reported in 2012. The EBIT margin likewise improved from 6.3 percent in 2012 to 6.8 percent in 2013. The Systems division contributed in particular to this positive development. The Robotics division generated EBIT of € 77.1 million, which was 3.9 percent lower than last year’s record level of € 80.2 million. The EBIT margin fell slightly as a result, moving from 10.8 percent in the 2012 financial year to 10.2 percent in 2013. The main reasons for this were higher expenditures on research and development as well as on hiring staff for general industry. The Systems division generated EBIT of € 60.8 million in the past fiscal year, which was 27.5 percent higher than last year’s € 47.7 million. The EBIT margin rose from 4.7 percent in 2012 to 5.8 percent in the reported financial year. The fourth quarter EBIT margin in 2013 even reached 6.4 percent. The increase at KUKA Systems was primarily due to improved process management, the growing share of value added from countries with lower cost structures and the high degree of utilization owing to the strong demand.

The number of employees in the KUKA Group as of December 31, 2013 grew compared to the previous year by 726 to 7,990 in total, which corresponds to a year-over-year increase of 10.0 percent. This broke down into 236 new employees at KUKA Robotics and 460 at KUKA Systems. The large increase at KUKA Systems is chiefly attributable to the acquisitions of Utica Enterprises and CMA Technologies.

“KUKA met its targets for 2013. With our strategic investments in China, in research and development and in general industry we have created an excellent basis to continue leveraging the great potential of robot-based automation,” explains Dr. Till Reuter, CEO of KUKA AG.

This press release contains the preliminary figures. The complete 2013 financial statements and the outlook for 2014 will be presented at the financial results press conference on March 26, 2014 in Munich.

Key figures: KUKA group

Key figures: robotics

Orders received by segment

Key figures: systems