Revenue
Group revenue fell in the third quarter of 2009/2010 compared with the same quarter a year earlier by 7.0 percent to EUR 205.1 million. Due to the late-cycle bias of our business, we generally benefit from any upswing with a lag of six to twelve months. The 9.8 percent lower revenue relative to the preceding quarter can be attributed to this fact. Taking into account delivery times and billing terms, the positive trend in order intake consequently was, expectedly, not able to show through in revenue for the quarter under review. As a result, Group revenue was likewise down on a nine-month basis, at EUR 641.1 million, compared with the same period the previous year (Q1 to Q3 2008/2009: EUR 791.8 million).
The decrease in revenue affected the segments to differing extents:
In the Industrial Cranes segment, third-quarter revenue fell by 15.2 percent compared with the same quarter a year earlier and 6.4 percent relative to the preceding quarter to EUR 101.3 million. This mainly reflects weak order intake in the high-revenue Process and Standard Cranes business in the first and second quarters of 2009/2010. Plant engineering business in particular is subject to fluctuations due to various factors. In the nine-month period, the Industrial Cranes segment generated revenue of EUR 316.0 million (Q1 to Q3 2008/2009: EUR 420.5 million).
Revenue in the Port Technology segment totalled EUR 29.6 million in the third quarter of 2009/2010, 16.0 percent down on the comparative quarter of the previous year. Compared with the preceding quarter, revenue fell by 36.0 percent. Most of the revenue generated came from sales of our Mobile Harbour Cranes. The drop in revenue relative to both the same quarter a year earlier and the immediately preceding quarter reflected revenue being postponed to the fourth quarter of 2009/2010. Under our contracts with some customers, products are not billed until customer acceptance. As has already been mentioned with reference to the order situation, we transacted virtually no business with our automated products in the period under review. In the nine-month period, revenue in the Port Technology segment came to EUR 113.8 million, a decrease of 22.1 percent on the comparative figure for the previous year (Q1 to Q3 2008/2009: EUR 146.1 million).
In the Services segment, revenue in the reporting period rose by 12.7 percent to EUR 74.2 million compared with the comparative quarter a year earlier. Encouragingly, demand for high-revenue, high-margin spare parts has begun to grow again. The revenue increase compared with the preceding quarter was 1.7 percent. Due to the weaker trend in the first quarter of 2009/2010, revenue for the first nine months, at EUR 211.3 million, remained 6.1 percent down on the comparative period of the previous year (Q1 to Q3 2008/2009: EUR 225.2 million).
Group revenue is distributed among regions as follows:
Looking at the regional figures, revenue was down in most regions compared with both the third quarter and the first nine months of the previous financial year. Growth was achieved in North America, the BRIC countries and the Other region. This corresponds with the general trend in the world economy. The emerging market share of Group revenue stayed near-constant in the last twelve months relative to financial year 2008/2009.
