Bosch Rexroth AG was able to sustain order input and staff levels in the financial year 2002 with only a minimal drop in sales, reported Chairman of the Board of Directors Winfried Witte. Despite difficult market conditions, the company continued to be profitable. For 2003, Bosch Rexroth is anticipating slight growth in sales and results. The Board is not anticipating any noticeable revival in the economic situation with respect to capital goods until 2004.
“The number of orders received is a measure of our assertion in the market,” emphasized Winfried Witte, chairman of the board of directors of Bosch Rexroth AG, at the company’s annual press conference in Hanover, Germany.As The Drive & Control Company, Bosch Rexroth supplies essential drive and control technology for the machine construction industry, mobile applications and large-scale projects.
In spite of the poor economic situation in 2002, the company was able to sustain the number of orders received at the same, very high level of 2001’s record year.Although important sectors of the machine construction industry suffered from a two-figure drop in sales, and while a 20% revaluation of the Euro against the U.S. dollar had a considerable detrimental impact on business operations, Bosch Rexroth AG sales in 2002 fell by a mere 6.8 % compared with the record year of 2001.Bosch Rexroth AG was able to at least partly compensate for the noticeable drop in domestic orders by an increase in the export rate for products and services.
“We achieved a growth rate of 65% in China,” stressed Witte. “We were also successful in Korea and Australia with high two-figure growth rates.” Rexroth thus profited from the activities started some decades ago in the Asia-Pacific economic region.
Witte announced a further expansion of production in China to permit even greater growth and a share of this market.While the factory automation market suffered in light of the unfavorable capital goods situation, Rexroth actually posted gains in the mobile technology market and in transmissions for wind power stations.By applying flexible working hours and other measures, the company maintained the number of employees at a mostly stable level. As of Dec. 31, 2002, the number of global employees had dropped by less than 1% to 25,581.
While 2002 investments sank by 26% compared with the previous year, Witte predicted a higher level of investment for the current year. “Rexroth is anticipating a slight growth in sales for 2003 as well as improved profits compared with 2002,” Witte said. Business in the first few months of this year confirmed this. Witte is not, however, expecting any noticeable improvement in the economic situation before 2004.Bosch Rexroth Corporation, a merger of Bosch Automation Technology and Rexroth, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH.
In the year 2002, Bosch Rexroth AG had total revenues of approximately $3.89 billion (3.62 billion Euros) and a worldwide total of around 26,000 employees. In the Americas, Bosch Rexroth had total revenues of $795 million and about 3,000 employees in 2002.Business units include Industrial Hydraulics, Electric Drives and Controls, Linear Motion and Assembly Technologies, Pneumatics, Service Automation and Mobile Hydraulics.
Bosch Rexroth, The Drive & Control Company, offers comprehensive solutions for drives and motion control in 80 countries around the world.For more information, please visit www.boschrexroth-us.com