STADLER: ‘Despite the ongoing challenging environment, Stadler achieved a solid performance in the first half of the year, aided by a diversified product portfolio and market success with alternative drive systems’, Group CEO Markus Bernsteiner said on August 28.
The signing of several orders was delayed until H2, so the SFr2·5bn order intake in H1 was lower than the ‘extremely high’ SFr4·7bn in H1 2023 when a major order was received.
Net profit was up 7% at SFr27·5m, and the backlog rose to a new high of SFr26·8bn.
Stadler notes that about one third of its revenue is usually generated in the first half of the year and the remaining two thirds in the second half.
Optimisation of production processes and a focus on order costs and meeting milestones meant gross margin was almost constant at 11·9%, compared to 12·1% in the same period last year. This was despite the effects of inflation, energy and raw material price increases, supply chain issues and geopolitical tensions.
The flooding of two Swiss production facilities belonging to specialised aluminium extrusion profile supplier Constellium has led to delays to the delivery of structural profiles. Stadler is working with Constellium to transfer production to another location, and has introduced ‘internal countermeasures’ to compensate for possible delivery bottlenecks.