Heidelberg has suffered a 12.7% drop in incoming orders in the first half of this financial, but it was always going to be tough to match the orders taken in a Drupa year with the confusion spread by US trade tariffs on top of this.
The result is a 14% drop in orders from the US and a knock on fall of 5% in sales from China as printers there face a slowdown in exports to the US. The company explains that orders had been “postponed due to the uncertainty associated with the complex tariffs imposted by the US government played a role in this development”. Sales to the US fell 3%.
On the positive side, Italian government support for companies to modernise has encouraged investment in the latest presses and Labelexpo resulted in “double-digit” millions in orders. Orders in the labels division are 20% higher.
Overall orders fell to €1,111 million from €1,273 million. This will not affect the business in the short term. There is a €809 million order backlog to keep its factories in operation, even if this backlog has reduced from the €953 million at the same point in 2024.
Sales in the year to date have increased from €915 million to €985 million and free cash flow showed an improvement from a negative €102 million to €64 million negative, although marginally positive in the second quarter. Cash flow benefitted from the acquisition of Polar.
The result has been an operating profit of €26 million compared to an operating loss of €6 million in the first half of last year. Heidelberg now expects a better second half and sales to exceed last year’s figure hitting €2.35 billion compared to €2.28 billion with margin rising to 8% compared to 7.1% as other saving measures kick in.
CEO Jurgen Otto says: “Heidelberg is holding up better than the competition in a very challenging market environment and is once again demonstrating that our strategy is working and bearing fruit. The positive developments in our core segments confirm we are headed in the right direction. The significant improvement in our profitability is particularly encouraging – a clear sign that our measures are proving effective.”
