Liebherr has posted another year of record revenues, with group sales increasing 11.4 percent to €11.75 billion, at the same time pre-tax profits jumped 45.5 percent to €748 million.
The Ehingen based mobile crane division achieved revenues of €2.54 billion, up 13.4 percent on 2018.
Geographically, sales within Europe representing 45.5 per cent of sales, followed by North America at 25.4 per cent and Australia/Oceania at 14.6 per cent. The company said that demand was particularly high for three to five-axle All Terrain cranes, while the market for crawler cranes remained difficult despite improvements on last year
The tower crane division posted revenues of €636 million, an increase of 11.4 per cent on 2018, with Europe representing 74.6 per cent of total sales and Germany remaining the largest market single for tower crane sales.
The maritime cranes’ division reported sales of €887 million, up 24.5 per cent in 2018 after having shrunk 1.1 per cent in 2017. Europe represented 38.3 per cent of sales, followed by the Africa and Middle East region at 22.1 percent and Australia/Oceania at 13.3 percent.
Total group crane sales – excluding foundation cranes – were just over €4 billion. The total number of employees as of the end of the year was 48,049 for the group as a whole, an increase of almost four percent on the year, while capital investment was 8.8 percent lower at €756 million.
The company said its order books at the start of 2020 were very strong but has warned that it is unable to forecast the impact of COVID-19 but expects that it will have a significant impact on revenues and profits for 2020.
