Konecranes posts growth in Europe and Americas

It recorded a 22.2% increase in sales over the same quarter last year, increasing from EUR 387.8m to EUR 474m, with most sales coming from Europe, followed by the Americas. Order activity also grew in these regions.

In its largest market, Europe, Konecranes’s president and CEO Pekka Lundmark said there was increased demand in Western Europe.

Container traffic in Baltic and Russian ports leads the rest of Europe, said Konecranes.

Konecranes reported good project activity with container ports, especially for automated solutions for large ports, and buoyant shipyard crane demand in Brazil.

Konecranes said this was a result of continuing growth in container traffic from 2011 to early 2012 particularly in North America, India and Australia.

Orders for industrial cranes and light lifting systems also increased.

Net sales increased the most year-on-year in Asia Pacific, at 35.6%, but orders fell for the region.

Konecranes’ first quarter of 2012 saw good sales growth, alongside continued high fixed spending on R&D and IT from the second quarter of 2011:

“It is not surprising that operational leverage was still low compared to the first quarter of 2011 since the acquisitions, network expansions and increased R&D and IT spending started to increase our fixed costs, mainly from the second quarter of last year onwards. Now, when our fixed cost growth is slowing down, we expect the operating leverage to increase,” said Konecranes’ president and CEO Pekka Lundmark.