Schaan (FL), May 18, 2016 – As expected, continued investments in sales, products and new services had a positive effect on the business performance of the Hilti Group. In the first four months of 2016, sales were up +7.4 percent in local currencies and +7.2 percent in Swiss Francs versus the same period of last year.
Given the positive sales performance, Hilti’s CEO Christoph Loos views the current business year with optimism: “Our extensive investments over the past two years have set the stage for outperforming the market even under volatile economic conditions and giving us confidence for significant sales growth in 2016. This confirms our forward strategy and we will invest further in selected growth initiatives.”
Like in the previous year, business in the regions was mixed over the first few months of 2016. While the overall context in the most important industrial countries was generally positive, many emerging economies were facing political and economic challenges. North America continued to post double-digit growth at +12.5 percent in local currencies as a result of the high level of construction activity. With sales growth at +7.8 percent, Europe has also shown robust performance. Conversely, the regions of Eastern Europe / Middle East / Africa (+6.4%) and Asia/Pacific (+1.4%) have fared less favorably. As a result of persistent political tensions and the dependence on commodity prices, the situation in Latin America continues to be challenging (-8.9%).
