Half-year report 2018 published

Kölleda, 23 August 2018 - The Funkwerk Group performed very well in the first six months of 2018, recording considerable growth in turnover and, to an even greater extent, in earnings. The company, which employed 420 people across the Group as at the reporting date (30 June 2017: 406), benefited noticeably from higher capacity utilisation, particularly as a result of long-term framework agreements that were delivered in the reporting period. In addition, the margin increased due to the continuous improvement of cost structures as well as quality and process workflows within the company.

Overall, Group sales rose by 23.5 % to EUR 34.3 million by the middle of the year (previous year: EUR 27.8 million) and the operating result increased from EUR 0.7 million in the same period of 2017 to EUR 3.0 million. Net profit for the period after taxes improved from EUR 0.5 million to EUR 2.6 million in the first half of the year.

Further growth in orders was also achieved in the reporting period: From January to the end of June 2018, the Funkwerk Group received new orders totalling EUR 44.5 million (previous year: EUR 38.2 million); the order backlog increased to EUR 68.6 million as of the reporting date (previous year: EUR 60.6 million).

In the area of train radio, the focus in the first half of 2018 continued to be on mobile solutions for the new train safety and control standard ETCS. Mobile applications based on LTE were also developed. In the Passenger Information division, Funkwerk continued to develop customised software solutions and delivered a significant number of display systems to several European railway operators. The „posa palleon“ management system, which is part of the video systems division, is increasingly in demand and marketed internationally. In addition, several IoT (Internet of Things) features were integrated into existing Funkwerk systems in order to equip them with additional functions.

For 2018 as a whole, the Funkwerk Group anticipates an increase in turnover to between €80 million and €85 million (2017: €77.6 million). The operating result is expected to be in the range of EUR 8.5 million to EUR 9.0 million (2017: EUR 7.2 million), to which, in addition to the growing business, the reduced extraordinary expenses compared to the previous year for supporting the proceedings pending in Algeria should contribute.