Gurit says that it had bet sales of CHF 284.7 million for the first six months of 2019, an increase of 45.8% compared to the same period in 2018.
Operating profit was CHF 27.5 million with an operating profit margin of 9.7% of net sales for the first half-year of 2019.
According to the company, its Composite Materials business achieved net sales of CHF 122.2 million in the first half-year 2019 compared to CHF 106.0 million, an increase of 15.3% in reported Swiss francs and 17.1% on a currency-adjusted basis. This is reportedly due to the Wind energy market where demand has increased significantly, while sales to other markets remained stable. The synthetic core materials operations are operating at capacity limits. Balsa wood operations are being overwhelmed by demand increases while raw material availability was restricted and raw material prices are significantly higher in 1HY 2019, Gurit said.
Kitting recorded sales of CHF 75.2 million in the same 2019 period, but as the business unit is reporting results within Gurit only as of Q4/2018, there is no comparison for the first half-year 2019.
Tooling increased its net sales by 12.6% (currency-adjusted: 14.4%) to CHF 67.8 million compared to CHF 60.2 million in the first half-year 2018, supported by the general wind market growth, a trend towards molds with extra-long sizes as well as large orders from an OEM client, according to the company. The sales increase was in general driven by sales to European and American OEMs, while sales to Chinese customers were weaker.
Aerospace sales increased by 10% (currency-adjusted: 12.2%) to CHF 27.5 million in the first six months of 2019 compared to net sales of CHF 25.0 million in the first half-year 2018, while Gurit’s discontinued Composite Components reported net sales of CHF 9.9 million for the first half-year 2019, an increase of 56.2% (currency-adjusted: 61.1%) over net sales of CHF 6.3 million in 2018.
‘Both the total and the continued business showed a strong performance, with the main support coming from the Wind market,’ the company said in a press release. ‘The discontinued business made remarkable operative improvements, both in terms of double-digit sales growth and better operative margins, but remains still impacted by some losses and additional impairment provisions.’
This story uses material from Gurit, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.