Interroll achieved a record order intake of CHF 592.6 million in the 2018 financial year. (previous year: 458.1 million Swiss francs). All regions recorded order growth: the Asia-Pacific region increased orders by 49.5%, the Americas by 32.9% and Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) by 23%.

Net sales rose by 24.2% and also reached a new company record of CHF 559.9 million on a consolidated basis. (previous year: 450.7 million Swiss francs). In local currency, sales growth amounted to 22.9%. The "Conveyors & Sorters" product group made a particularly strong contribution to this with an increase of 54.6% and "Drives" with an increase of 16.5% compared to the previous year.

Regions reflect globalization
In the EMEA region, the growth of recent years continued in the 2018 financial year. Incoming orders increased by 23% compared to the previous year to 268.3 million Swiss francs and reached 330 million Swiss francs. Sales amounted to 307.6 million Swiss francs, 15.9% higher than in the same period of the previous year (265.5 million Swiss francs). This development was driven by strong demand for rollers, drives and conveyor systems.

Sales in the Americas region amounted to 172.8 million Swiss francs, 43.4% higher than in the same period of the previous year (120.5 million Swiss francs). The North American market, led by the USA, accounted for the lion's share of this development. Interroll continued to grow strongly here. The reason for this positive development is the continued strong demand in the e-commerce, food and distribution center sectors. In the USA, Interroll completed the capacity expansion at the Hiram/Atlanta, Georgia, site in the first half of 2018.

Interroll's sales in the Asia-Pacific region grew strongly by 22.8% in the 2018 financial year, reaching 79.4 million Swiss francs (previous year: 64.7 million Swiss francs). In contrast, however, order intake rose by a significant 49.5% from CHF 62.3 million in the previous year to a new record level of CHF 93.1 million. A major order for modular conveyor platforms (MCP) and spiral lifts in the low double-digit CHF million range in South Korea is particularly significant here. The order comes from a leading e-commerce company.

Innovations
In the reporting year, Interroll introduced important enhancements to its modular drum motor platform. This is suitable for modern belt conveyor systems and includes both synchronous and asynchronous drive solutions.

With the new Interroll Spiral Lift, Interroll offers a vertical conveyor solution. The Spiral Lift is characterized by an extremely small footprint, which enables optimal use of space. With a deep-freeze version of its Modular Conveyor Platform (MCP), Interroll has created a conveyor platform for the temperature range down to minus 30 degrees Celsius. With new infeed conveyor modules, also known as infeeds, Interroll offers higher infeed speeds and a reduced space requirement, which are optimally matched to the interaction with Interroll cross belt types and offer great potential for increasing the goods throughput of automatic sorting systems.

Outlook
Thanks to the record order intake in 2018, the Group made a positive start to the new 2019 financial year in all regions and with all product groups. There are no signs of a slowdown in the core sales markets. Market expansion goes hand in hand with the need to increase capacity. For example, a new plant in Thailand is about to be commissioned.

"The Group's solid financial position allows it to invest decisively in capacity expansion in the 2019 financial year and beyond," says Paul Zumbühl, CEO of the global Interroll Group. Last December, Interroll announced additional investments of around EUR 40 million in southern Germany in order to better exploit the medium to long-term growth opportunities in the Conveyors & Sorters segment with doubled capacity in Europe and thus also to sustainably strengthen the Group's global positioning. Further expansion investments are in preparation. as