Business booming for KUKA despite difficult world situation

KUKA has announced that it has achieved strong results in the first six months of 2022. At €2545.4 million, the value of KUKA Group’s orders received in the first half of the year was 34.8% higher than in the previous year, and sales revenues increased by 13.5% to around €1.7 billion.

“In the first half of 2022, we are reporting the highest ever level of orders received in a half-year period. At over €2.5 billion after only six months, this is only just below that figure for the full year 2020,” said Peter Mohnen, CEO of KUKA AG. All divisions contributed to this strong performance. In the first half-year 2022, for example, KUKA almost doubled the volume of orders received in China.

“KUKA is winning over more and more customers in more and more industries worldwide in the competitive automation market. Experience from the pandemic has also shown that our products and solutions centred on robotics, automation and software solutions have become indispensable for modern production operations,” he added.

Despite the high demand, KUKA is also impacted by the difficult underlying economic conditions such as the semiconductor shortage and the effects of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine with material bottlenecks, faltering supply chains and rising costs.

“The challenge at present is primarily to generate revenues and thus profits from the orders,” Mohnen said. “Our teams are working hard to ensure that we can manufacture and deliver our products under significantly more difficult conditions. Global uncertainties and risks will remain with us for some time to come.

“The economy is facing enormous global challenges. Automation solutions help companies around the world to respond to these issues.”

Energy-efficient robots or smart simulation software, for example, can help optimise production and conserve resources; and digitally connected manufacturing processes can make data such as energy consumption measurable and help reduce costs.

Image credit: KUKA Robotics.