Terex Cranes Q2 sales up 23.6%

Net sales at Terex Cranes increased by 23.6% in the second quarter of 2007 compared to the same period last year.

That amounted to US$544.5 million, a rise of $103.9 million from $440.6 million in the second quarter of 2006.

The company said the figures reflected improvement in all its product categories and the favourable impact of currency exchange rates. Excluding the effect of exchange rates, net sales grew by around 19%. Income from operations increased by $19.9 million to $56.8 million, or 10.4% of sales, over the second quarter of 2006.

“The Terex Cranes segment continued to demonstrate significant growth in both sales and profitability. The global market for cranes continues to be outstanding, and our manufacturing locations are making real improvements in our ability to increase throughput. Also leading to increased sales is a shift to larger cranes, such as our large crawler cranes from Germany and rough terrain cranes in North America, as well as the favourable impact of pricing. That said, global demand for our products continues to outpace supply, as evidenced by our record backlog,” commented Steve Filipov, Terex Cranes president.

Filipov continued, “Our challenge is meeting this demand. Our factory performance continues to improve, but the unprecedented demand for cranes continues to stress our supply chain and our internal operations, such as welding capacity. As we previously mentioned, we will address the limited supply of certain components and production bottlenecks through improved coordination with our suppliers and implementation of lean principles to better utilise our manufacturing footprint.

“It is difficult to gauge the timing on these productivity improvement initiatives, but we certainly believe there is room for significant financial improvement.”