Koenig & Bauer has remained on track for a recovery in its business in the first nine months of 2021. Customer orders rose by 37.3% to €978.6m during this period.
This performance was particularly underpinned by the increase of around 54.0% in the Special segment. Orders were up on the previous year in all parts of this segment, especially driven by securities business. Order intake was also up in the Sheetfed segment again, rising by 35.5%, with the sharply expansionary and more pandemic-resistant packaging printing market accounting for the bulk of this growth. Nevertheless, some new investments are being postponed due to the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first nine months of 2021, this mainly relates to order intake in the Digital & Webfed segment, although there were tentative signs of a recovery in incoming orders in the third quarter, as a total of five CorruCUT die-cutters were successfully marketed to beta and new customers as of the end of July 2021.
All told, customer orders rose by 56.2% year-on-year in the third quarter, thus outpacing the sector average (June – August: 39.8%).
