Automation specialist, Beckhoff Automation successfully continued on its growth trajectory in 2023. The automation technology specialist was able to increase its sales to €1,75 billion. This represents an increase of 16% in comparison with the previous year’s sales of €1,52 billion. Currently, 5500 employees worldwide, including over 2000 engineers, contribute to the company’s global success. Continuous innovation in all areas of automation, and close cooperation with many global technology leaders, are the keys to success for Beckhoff.
Challenging economic trends in 2023 and 2024
“2023 was a challenging financial year,” explains managing director, Hans Beckhoff. “The strong growth in incoming orders from 2022 continued in the first few months of 2023 and led to a record order backlog and sales. However, incoming orders declined significantly as the year progressed. In the main, we can attribute this to the fact that our customers built up big stockpiles of products and placed mass orders in 2022 and at the beginning of 2023 in order to compensate for fluctuations in deliveries during the components crisis. They balanced this by ordering smaller quantities in the course of 2023. In addition, cyclical declines had an impact on some regions and industries.”
In the first quarter of 2024, Beckhoff observed stabilisation in incoming orders with a slightly positive trend. “We anticipate a significant increase in demand in the second half of the year,” Beckhoff says. “In 2024, we will probably still see a significant decline in incoming orders and sales in comparison to 2023. We do not expect to see decent growth again until 2025. However, that doesn’t worry us. It will be the fifth sharp downturn that we will experience in our 44-year history. As a solid family business, we are well prepared for this, and will make the most of the resulting opportunities together with our customers.”
All Beckhoff products available ex-stock again
Over the past two years, Beckhoff has made extensive investments in production, warehousing and infrastructure, including increasing production capacity by more than 100%. In addition, the supply situation for components has improved significantly on the market. Beckhoff adds, “Our goal was to do everything we could to assure reliable standard delivery times for our customers again by the end of 2023. Beckhoff is currently able to supply almost all products ex stock again.”
Innovations for automation
Beckhoff Automation also had more exciting innovations at the Hannover Messe exhibition, such as industrial PCs with more CPU power, powerful control software for Windows and Linux, expansion of the Beckhoff Bus Terminal System, the MX-System, which can replace the control cabinet, new drive amplifiers and motors, new software-based safety CPUs, and deep integration of AI into the control and engineering functions.
A positive outlook for long-term development
Overall, Beckhoff is positive about the future: “Automation is a basic technology that is used in all areas of society worldwide, and it is a driver of digital and ecological transformation. Constantly growing demand and the introduction of new product ranges and forms of technology should enable us to return to good, steady growth,” he concludes.
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