05.07.2007

Kobelco cranes up 42%

Kobelco Cranes, the Japanese producer of crawler cranes has reported sales revenues of 56.4 billion yen ($461/£228 million) for its fiscal year ended March 31 2007 an increase of 42 percent on last year.

In total the company sold 730 cranes, an increase of 38 percent or 200 additional units on 2005/6.

Pre tax income rose by 125 percent to 4.95 billion yen ($40/£20 million) while net income increased by 134 percent to almost 3 billion yen ($24/£12 million).

The company says that it saw strong demand worldwide, including from the domestic market in Japan, the Middle East and South Korea with around 80% of its unit shipments being exported.

Kobelco says that in general the outlook for the current year is positive and is anticipating a further 17 percent improvement in revenues to 66 billion yen ($539/£267 million) but is forecasting a modest four percent increase in operating income, translating to an 11 percent improvement in new income after tax.

The company says that it is stepping up its telescopic crane volume in Japan through its agreement with Tadano for the supply of Kobelco branded Rough Terrain cranes and with Manitowoc for the supply of Kobelco branded Grove All Terrain cranes.


Vertikal Comment

Kobelco certainly build a first class crawler crane and is going from strength to strength, with key markets remaining strong and its OEM agreement with Manitowoc continuing to develop, its forecasts for 2007/8 look decidedly conservative.

The word ‘Sandbagging’ comes to mind. With the crawler crane market being strong and increasingly profitable and domestic demand for telescopic cranes apparently up by around 20 percent, this would be a good time to fully move back into this market.

Perhaps it should consider stepping up its OEM agreement or look at an acquisition?