Exyte concludes successful first half of 2019 and records strong growth in the European market
- Sales in H1 2019 up year on year (+2.7% compared to H1 2018)
- Improved profitability compared to H1 2018 (adjusted EBIT margin of 5.5% in H1 2019)
- Strong growth in the European market; sales up over 30 percent year on year
Exyte AG (“Exyte”), a global leader in the design, engineering and construction of high-tech facilities, plants and factories, continued to grow despite a challenging overall market environment and improved its profitability in the first half of financial year 2019. The company recorded particularly strong growth in the European market.
Exyte generated sales of € 1,734 million (H1 2018: € 1,689 million) and an adjusted EBIT of € 96 million (H1 2018: € 82 million) in the first six months of 2019. The company increased its sales by 2.7% and its adjusted EBIT by 17.1% year on year. The adjusted EBIT margin amounted to 5.5% in the first half of 2019, which represents a year-on-year improvement of 12.2%.
While order intake was down year on year in the first quarter 2019 due to a major project that was awarded in the first quarter of 2018, Exyte continued its positive growth trend of recent years in the second quarter with an increase in order intake of 41% compared to the second quarter of 2018. Exyte generated a total order intake of € 2,431 million in the first half of the year (H1 2018: € 2,957 million), resulting in an order book of € 3,591 million as of 30 June 2019.
Exyte records strong growth in Europe in the first half of 2019
The business segment Advanced Technology Facilities (ATF), in particular semiconductors, remains Exyte’s largest segment. In the first half of 2019, ATF’s sales rose by 13% compared to the strong first half of financial year 2018. With sales of € 1,448 million in the first six months of 2019, the ATF business segment is still significantly larger than the two strategic business segments Life Sciences & Chemicals (LSC; € 156 million sales) and Data Center (DTC; € 76 million sales). However, LSC and DTC continue to be important growing markets for Exyte, as for instance demonstrated by DTC ‘s order intake of close to € 500 million in the first six months of 2019.
While the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) remains Exyte’s largest market, the company was able to record particularly substantial growth in the European market (EMEA). With € 537 million, Exyte increased its sales in Europe by 34% year on year in the first half of 2019.
Dr. Wolfgang Büchele, CEO of Exyte, says: “We are pleased to see the very positive development in Europe. Driven by substantial semiconductor activities, we succeeded in significantly increasing our sales in this market and doubled our order intake. Europe remains a strategic priority for us alongside the Asia-Pacific region.”
Exyte benefits from megatrends
Exyte is a leading global partner for the design and construction of extremely demanding production processes and environments. In addition to special technological knowledge, cost-effective and flexible production facilities are also important for customers.
While Exyte has already achieved a significant market position in the high technology industries such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals & biotechnology, new (advanced) technologies are increasingly gaining importance. Megatrends such as e-mobility and energy storage are driving the growth in the construction of factories for the production of Li-ion batteries worldwide.
Exyte expects record sales in financial year 2019
Following the successful development in the first half of 2019, Exyte has raised its sales outlook for the full year and now expects record sales in the magnitude of € 4.0 billion (2018: € 3.5 billion). At the same time, Exyte anticipates an order intake at the level of the previous year (2018: € 4.4 billion) and a moderate increase in adjusted EBIT (2018: € 170 million).