ETTEPLAN Q1 2019 published: Revenue and operating profit hit new records

ETTEPLAN News release May 8, 2019

Etteplan’s Interim Report January – March 2019 has been published. You can find the Report and the related presentation materials at https://www.etteplan.com/investors/reports-presentations .

Join our webcast today May 8th at 2.30 EEST at http://bit.ly/2J9NVq5 . A recording of the webcast can be found through the same link after the live-event.

President and CEO Juha Näkki:

“The year 2019 started with the best quarter in Etteplan’s history. All three service areas were successful, and we set new records for our revenue and operating profit (EBIT). In spite of the prevailing uncertainty in the markets, the demand situation in Europe remained good and we won several significant deals during the first months of the year. In China, the threat of a trade war affected the demand of our existing customers and our growth slowed down. Nevertheless, the opening up of the Chinese service market continued and we won several new customers.

We renewed our organization at the beginning of the year to boost the implementation of our strategy and respond even better to changing global demand. The new organization got off to a flying start in the first quarter and we have launched several development projects, particularly with the aim of boosting the sale of service solutions. We will continue the determined development of our business in order to achieve our strategic and financial targets.

The Engineering Solutions service area saw excellent development and we again exceeded the profitability level of 10 per cent through good operational efficiency. A good number of new equipment and plant engineering projects were started during the review period, and we expect the positive development to continue.

The Software and Embedded Solutions service area also had a good start to the year. Thanks to the measures we have taken, our project business has overcome the challenges that have burdened it during the recent years and we were able to achieve profitable growth in our project business. As a result, the share of revenue represented by Managed Services increased significantly, the impact of which was also seen at the Group level.  

The Technical Documentation Solutions service area accelerated its growth and its profitability improved substantially. The demand for software solutions and outsourcing solutions picked up, which supported the improvement in profitability. Challenges in Germany continued to burden the service area’s profitability. We have replaced the unit’s management and increased the efficiency of the project operations on a broad front. With these measures, we believe the business will improve during the coming quarters.

We have now grown for five and a half years consecutively and improved our operating profit in every quarter for three straight years. While the forecasts of global economic growth have been reduced and uncertainty in the markets continues, we believe our business will develop positively and we expect our revenue and operating profit to grow clearly compared to 2018.”

Additional information:
Juha Näkki, President and CEO, tel. +358 10 307 2077
Outi Torniainen, SVP, Communications and Marketing, tel. +358 10 307 3302