Adjusted for exchange rate effects, growth amounted to 13%. At EUR 6.7 billion, incoming orders at the end of 2018 were 3.8% higher than the already good previous year. "Both turnover and operating result exceeded our expectations in 2018. This puts us in a good starting position for a challenging economic year in 2019," said Rolf Najork, Member of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch with responsibility for the Industrial Technology sector and Chairman of the Board of Management of Bosch Rexroth AG.

In Germany, the company increased sales by just under eleven percent to 1.4 billion euros. At 2.1 billion euros (up 10.5 percent), Bosch Rexroth achieved around a third of its overall result in Europe (excluding Germany). The company performed particularly well in the Asia/Pacific/Africa region. At 1.6 billion euros, sales there were almost a fifth higher than in the previous year. Business in North and South America also generated a positive result of 1.1 billion euros (up 8.2 percent).

Bosch Rexroth can look back on positive development in its Factory Automation, Plant Construction and Engineering and Mobile Applications divisions. The main growth drivers in 2018 were mobile hydraulics and factory automation. In addition to its traditionally strong position in industrial and mobile hydraulics, Bosch Rexroth is increasingly positioning itself as a provider of Industry 4.0 solutions with software-based, automated and connected solutions. The company is focusing on digitalization, connectivity and electrification across all of its divisions.

Investing in the future
Last year, Bosch Rexroth invested more than 327 million euros in the development of new products and solutions. This corresponds to more than five percent of sales. A new customer and innovation center is currently being built in Ulm, where projects and business models relating to digitalization, electrification and the factory of the future will be driven forward across all technologies and divisions.

In China, Bosch Rexroth began expanding its plant in X'ian in March. With an investment of around 60 million euros, the company is doubling its development and production capacities for connected solutions for the Asian factory automation market. The Xi'an site is thus becoming a Bosch Rexroth showcase plant for Industry 4.0 technologies.

Economic outlook and market situation
With the positive result for 2018, Bosch Rexroth is currently in a good economic situation. The company expects economic momentum to slow overall in the second half of 2019.

The factory automation market continues to benefit from the trend towards automation and digitalization. Automation solutions for increasing productivity and implementing Industry 4.0 concepts are supporting global market demand. Demand for intralogistics solutions also continues to offer growth potential. However, investment momentum is expected to slow overall in 2019, particularly due to the decline in consumer demand in China since the end of last year.

In 2018, the market for industrial hydraulics also benefited from the generally positive economic trend and recorded moderate growth. Growth is expected to be slightly weaker overall this year, albeit with differences in individual customer sectors. After high growth rates in previous years, no further growth is expected in the global mobile hydraulics market in 2019. There is a risk of a market slowdown in the second half of the year in particular. as