“Gurit sales in the first quarter continued the trend of the second half of last year: strong double-digit growth in Marine and Industrial, but significantly lower Wind market with a particular challenging environment for the Manufacturing Solutions business,” a press release said.
The company’s Composite Materials business had net sales of CHF 61.2 million for the same period, an increase of 2.6%, due to growth of the marine and Industrial markets and stronger polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sales. Balsa and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) continued to decline in demand, Gurit said.
Kitting sales were CHF 35.8 million, a decrease of 12.1%, reportedly due to reduced demand for wind blades and lower balsa pricing for the first quarter of 2022, while Manufacturing Solutions (Tooling) saw a significant decrease in its first quarter 2022 net sales by 65.9%. “The decrease is a result of a continued lack of demand for new molds as a consequence of Western customers launching only few new blade designs,” the company said. “This low demand period started in Q2, 2021 and Gurit expects it to change in 2023.”
However, Aerospace net sales in Q1 2022 were CHF 9.0 million, an increase of 42.7% compared what Gurit said was a “very weak” Q1 2021.
The company now expects a revenue of between CHF 410 and 450 million, and an operating profit margin between 5.5% and 8.0%.
