14.11.2008

Tadano up 7.5%

Tadano has released its results for the first half of its fiscal year to the end of September, which show revenues of ¥87.8 billion ($909 million), an increase of almost 7.5 percent compared the same period last year. Net profits were ¥5.6 billion ($58 million) an increase of 2.7 percent.

The company has adjusted its full year forecasts downward by a percentage point, to ¥178 billion ($1.84 billion), while net income for the full year is now projected to come in at ¥9.2 billion($95 million) a fall of over 20 percent on 2007/8

Tadano says that during the first half the Japanese economy showed increasing signs of a slowdown amid growing concerns over economic stagnation as capital investment and personal consumption tailed off.

Tadano said: “Under these circumstances, overall demand in our industry for construction cranes maintained its momentum due to replacement needs in the domestic market. In overseas markets, energy-related demand remained robust in North America, while demand also increased in Europe and the Middle East.”

The company says that given solid demand in both its domestic and overseas markets, it has focused on boosting production and sales and promoting its Mid-Term Management Plan (08-10).

With long deliveries a fact of life, Tadano says that it has carefully planned allocation in pursuing sales by market destination and endeavored to improve product pricing in response to the surging prices of raw materials such as steel and energy.

“In procurement and production, we worked to simultaneously cut costs and increase production by maintaining a balance among suppliers, affiliated plants and our own plants amid the extreme constraints of an unstable procurement environment.”

Japanese sales dropped to ¥41,685 million, 7.2 percent below the same level last year. Higher sales of construction cranes was more than offset by declining demand for truck mounted loader cranes and aerial platforms.

Exports rose 25.3 percent compared to the same period of 2007/08 totalling ¥46,182 million ($478 million) or 52.6 percent of total company revenues, due to a considerable increase in the sales of construction cranes in the European and North American markets.