Machinery industry Sulzer maintains high order growth rate

The industrial group Sulzer brought in significantly more orders in the first nine months of 2024 than in the previous year. The pace of growth in the first half of the year was roughly maintained in the third quarter.

From January to September, Sulzer received orders worth CHF 2.93 billion, as the company announced on Tuesday. This corresponds to an increase of 4.6 percent. Excluding the negative currency effect, growth in local currencies even amounted to 9.2 percent. The appreciation of the Swiss franc reduced incoming orders by 131 million.

Growth in all divisions

All three divisions contributed to Sulzer's growth in order intake. Compared to the previous year and in local currencies, new orders in the Services division increased the most by almost 13 percent, followed by the Flow Equipment (+8.0%) and Chemtech (+6.2%) divisions. The order backlog at the end of September was unchanged from the end of June at CHF 2.4 billion.

Order intake at Flow Equipment benefited from solid demand in the water and industrial sectors. This in turn was supported by increasing momentum in the green minerals markets and in wastewater treatment. Sulzer also saw good market momentum in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

Growth in the Chemtech division was driven by high order volumes in polymers and carbon sequestration. And in the Services division, all three market regions grew regionally, with the North, Central and South America and Asia-Pacific regions showing the strongest growth.

For Sulzer as a whole, however, growth was best in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region with an increase of almost 16 percent.

The forecasts for the full year 2024 were confirmed. Accordingly, Sulzer continues to target an increase in order intake of 9 to 12 percent, organic sales growth of 9 to 11 percent and an operating profit margin of around 12 percent.