Sennheiser 2011 Annual Report Download - page 29

CONSOLIDATED MANAGEMENT REPORT 2011
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CONSOLIDATED MANAGEMENT REPORT 2011
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the Eurozone. The noticeable drop in the value of the euro observed since September 2011 will give exports a
boost from 2012 on. Capacity utilization in the electrical and electronics industry, which rose from a low of 70%
in mid-2009 to a cyclical high of 86.3% in July 2011, has fallen slightly recently to 85.2% (as of October 2011).
This level of capacity utilization is therefore approximately midway between the record value of 88% seen in
2008 and the long-term average of 83%.
The sub-index of the Ifo Business Climate Index for the electrical and electronics industry fell in December 2011.
After having reached its highest level since German reunification at the beginning of 2011, expectations for the
next six months and from midyear also diminished the assessment of current conditions. In December 2011,
10% of companies expected an increase in business activities, 61% believed that business activities would remain
unchanged and 29% projected business to decline in the coming six months. Remarkably, the assessments of
current conditions at the end of the year were still very positive and not much down from boom year 2007.
Added to this was an improvement in December on November.
All told for 2012, the most recent decline in incoming orders and overall negative expectations most likely mean
that output will see a much reduced increase as against 2011. ZVEI forecasts output growth of 5.0% in 2012
after 14% in 2011. This is entirely realistic given standard lag effects and the strong level of incoming orders
seen until mid-2011; however, this can only be the case if the government debt crisis in the Eurozone does not
experience a serious escalation in the form of Greece becoming insolvent or the country even exiting the Euro-
zone. However, in the medium term, the lack of engineers resulting from demographic factors will exacerbate,
which will likely have a limited impact on order acceptance and therefore on turnover growth.
ASSET, FINANCIAL AND OPERATING POSITION
Turnover and Operating Position of the Sennheiser Group
The Sennheiser Group closed financial year 2011 with total turnover of €531.4 million and successful turnover
growth of 14% against 2010. Although the increasing strength of the euro against the US dollar over the course
of the year pushed turnover growth in the Americas region down to only 6%, this trend was offset to a significant
degree by above-average growth of 15% in EMEA. In particular, the Northern and Eastern European sales regions
saw above-average growth of 22% and 52% respectively. Although turnover growth was low overall, the extraor-
dinary developments in the APAC region of 22% also made a significant contribution to Sennheiser’s turnover
growth. In terms of the distribution of percentile, turnover growth posted by the individual product segments,
the Sennheiser Communications business division as well as professional headphones and wireless microphones
played a vital role with average growth of more than 20%.
[ OUTLOOK ]
[ DEVELOPMENT ]
TURNOVER
(€ Millions)
Change from previous year, in percent
500
400
300
200
100
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
395.3 385.8
–2.4 %
389.9
+1.1 %
468.2
+20.1 %
531.4
+13.5 %
TURNOVER BY REGION
(€ Millions)
Change from previous year, in percent
500
400
300
200
100
0
2009 2010 2011 2009 2010 2011 2009 2010 2011
Americas EMEA APAC
13.3
+22.3 %
41.9
+14.8 %
8.0
+6.4 %
99.3 125.6 133.6
246.5
282.9
324.8
Germany
88.7 (16.7 %)
44.0 59.7 73.0