KUKA: Preliminary figures for the 2016 financial year

• Orders received totaling €3.4 billion, an increase of 20.6% - surpassing the three billion euro mark for the first time (2015: €2.8 billion)
• Sales revenues of €2.9 billion at virtually the same level as the previous year
• Order backlog of €2.1 billion (+25.0%) at end of year, ensuring a high level of capacity utilization in 2017
• EBIT margin before purchase price allocation and before extraordinary costs reaches 5.6% after 6.6% in 2015
• Guidance targets for 2016 fulfilled

Augsburg, February 15, 2017 - The KUKA Group completed the 2016 financial year with successful results, exceeding the previous year's figures by a considerable margin in some cases. KUKA continued to profit from the strong global demand for robots and automation solutions. All three divisions - Robotics, Systems and Swisslog - contributed to this positive business development. In detail, KUKA Group ended the 2016 financial year as follows (preliminary figures):
The preliminary volume of orders received totaled a record value of €3,422.3 million in the past financial year. This is equivalent to a 20.6% increase on the previous year (2015: €2,838.9 million). This high value broke through the three billion euro mark for the first time. The divisions profited from orders placed by the international automotive industry and general industry. Preliminary orders received in the Robotics division increased from €891.2 million to €1,088.8 million in 2016, thus topping the one billion euro mark. In particular, the automotive segment saw strong growth of 30.3%. The Group registered growth of 18.8% in the general industry segment and 13.8% in the service segment. Orders received by the Systems division in the past financial year totaled €1,644.6 million (2015: €1,428.1 million), corresponding to a rise of 15.2%. The reason for this positive development was the strong demand from the automotive industry and general industry. From a regional perspective, the primary markets, i.e. Europe, China and USA, were highly successful. In the Swisslog division, orders received rose 34.6% to €742.6 million (2015: €551.8 million).
Preliminary sales revenues of KUKA Group reached a value of €2,948.9 million in 2016 and were thus at virtually the same level as the previous year (2015: €2,965.9 million). The Robotics division posted a result of €993.5 million. This is a 9.2% increase on the comparable figure for the previous year (2015: €909.6 million). Systems generated sales revenues of €1,395.5 million. Compared with the previous year, the value was down 5.2% (2015: €1,471.7 million), as call-offs on major orders from this year are predominantly being executed in subsequent quarters. Sales revenues of the Swisslog division were down 4.4% to €593.5 million in the year under review.
The book-to-bill ratio, i.e. orders received in relation to sales revenues, was above 1 at Group level in the 2016 financial year, coming in at 1.16. This indicates an increase on sales in 2017.
The preliminary order backlog in the past financial year totaled €2,048.9 million. This is an increase of 25.0% (2015: €1,639.0 million).
Not taking the purchase price allocation for Swisslog and one-off effects of the Midea Group takeover bid into account, KUKA Group achieved earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of €166.0 million (2015: €194.3 million). The EBIT margin stood at 5.6% (2015: 6.6%). If these non-operating effects are taken into consideration, the provisional EBIT was €127.2 million and the EBIT margin 4.3%. At Robotics, the EBIT was €100.7 million and thus slightly higher than the level in 2015 (+0.5%). The Systems EBIT fell from €114.7 million to €91.3 million. The EBIT margin accordingly dropped from 7.8% to 6.5%. One major reason for this decline was the book profits from the sale of HLS Group and the Tools and Dies business unit. The Swisslog division achieved a provisional EBIT of €4.8 million (2015: -€45.9 million) and increased its EBIT margin from -7.4% to 0.8%. This satisfying development is attributable to the successful integration of Swisslog into KUKA Group.
The number of employees in KUKA Group as at December 31, 2016 increased from 12,300 to 13,188. With 4,726 employees, KUKA Robotics saw its workforce grow by 11.7%. The primary expansion of the workforce was in the areas of research and development, but automotive, general industry and service also saw an increase. Swisslog recorded growth of 4.9% to 2,679, while Systems grew by 0.8% to 5,189.
'With a record figure of over three billion euro, we look back on an extremely successful and eventful year. We remain on our global growth path, setting new trends in digitization,' says Dr. Till Reuter, CEO of KUKA AG.
This press release contains the preliminary figures. The complete 2016 financial statements and the outlook for 2017 will be presented at the financial results press conference on March 22, 2017 in Augsburg.