The Jungheinrich Group sees clear signs of a recovery of the market for materials handling equipment. After the year 2004 had initially begun very moderately, in the months of April and May-starting from the already strong March-the market volume increased significantly not only outside of Europe, but also in some European countries. The market volume for materials handling equipment in Europe grew in the first four months of 2004 as compared with the corresponding year-earlier period by 7 per cent to 89,000 units (prior year: 83,000 units). The value of incoming orders at Jungheinrich rose in the same period by 4 per cent to 507 million Euro (prior year: 488 million Euro).
There was also a marked increase in the orders on hand in new sales business at more than 190 million Euro, which puts these some 30 million Euro higher than at the same time in the prior year. Capital expenditures of the Group at 60 million Euro will, as in the prior year, remain at a high level. These focus in particular on the expansion of international sales as well as on increasing the productivity of the plants.
For Jungheinrich, the year 2004 is associated with a number of chances but also risks. In this connection Dr. Cletus von Pichler, Chairman of the Board of Management, states: "We see clear signs for a growing market volume and thus chances for higher incoming orders and for net sales growth. But of course there continue to be risks deriving from the competitive environment with ongoing high pressure on prices as well as the clearly significant increase in prices for materials."| -End- |
