The Liebherr Group is on track to exceed €10 billion in sales for the first time in the company’s history.
In the first six months of the year, Liebherr generated about €5.1 billion, compared to €4.8 billion in the first half of 2017, representing a 6.3 per cent increase.
Last year also marked a record year for sales for Liebherr, reaching €9.845 billion.
“Our success in 2017 and the first months of 2018 shows that our company is on a stable course into the future,” said Kristain Koch, managing director of Liebherr-International Deutschland GmbH.
Koch delivered the financial forecast during Liebherr’s 2018 Information Tour for International Trade Press, held in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
“We invited you here this year because Canada developed a significant relevance for the industry,” Koch said.
“After all, the country is one of the world’s most important markets for the international construction machinery, building material plant and the mining machine industry.
Growing workforce
Liebherr finished 2017 with almost 43,900 employees and invested €749 million back into our business throughout the year.
While Liebherr’s sales increase, so does its workforce, investment into research and development as well as investment into its production facilities, distribution and service network. In 2018, the company will have invested €834 million, equalling a 7.2 per cent investment rate.
“When we look at the last four years, the investment volume amounts to more than €3 billion,” Koch said.
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For its workforce, the company expects to add more than 3,000 new employees by the end of the year, for a total of nearly 47,000 people worldwide.
“What distinguishes the Liebherr Group from many other companies is our long-term thinking — within an independent family-run business, that has reached its second and third generation of joint management,” Koch said. “We take a steady, patient approach to all that we do — from the organization of our company, to our investments, to our employees.”
Liebherr-Canada
Over the past six years Liebherr-Canada has increased its gross revenue by more than 28 per cent.
Sales revenue is led by earthmoving equipment with 44 per cent, followed by mobile and crawler cranes and mining equipment at 17 per cent each and deep foundation equipment at 12 per cent.
For all-terrain cranes, Liebherr holds 74 per cent of the Canadian market share.
When the manufacturer celebrates its 50th year in Canada, the company expects to reach $500 million in annual sales.
“Over the past 45 years, this company has grown from a small-scale hydraulic excavator sales and service business to a mixed sales company that takes responsibility for almost each individual product division of the Liebherr Group of Companies,” said Tim Peterson, managing director of Liebherr-Canada.
The company now employs more than 350 people and has operations in nine locations across Canada, spanning six time zones.
Reman
Liebherr-Canada’s headquarters in Burlington, Ontario is also home to the company’s remanufacturing (reman) facility for Canada, the United States and Mexico. The reman department offers customers component exchange, overhaul and rebuild or repairs.
“This has a positive impact not only on the environment, but is also cost efficient for our customers,” Peterson said.
The Reman facility was recently upgraded with a special contamination free environment and equipped with component specific assembly stations, a new state of the art computer controlled dyno, hydraulic test areas and paint booth.
The company’s mining reman facility in Alberta has also undergone an upgrade and expansion throughout the last five years.
With Canadian mining generating nearly $44 billion in 2017, the Liebherr-Canada will look to the sector to grow its business.
“We offer a full range of mining equipment to our partners in Canada, everything from the largest haul trucks in the world, large capacity excavators, face shovels along with high performance large bulldozers,” Peterson said.
“We have a lot of opportunity to expand our business in the mining sector in the coming years as interest continues to grow.”
