Basler has seen a 62 per cent increase in sales and a 100 per cent increase in incoming orders for the first half of 2017. Sales amounted to €78.5 million (compared to €48.5 million for the same period last year), while the group's incoming orders were €100.4 million (€50.2 million for the previous year).
Basler put the strong increase in incoming orders down to a strong investment cycle in the Asian electronic goods industry, along with early order placements because of extended delivery times.
The company stated that ‘at the end of the second quarter, incoming orders cooled down and are expected to continue to weaken in the upcoming months.’
Basler recently purchased embedded computing firm Mycable, which had 2016 sales of approximately €2.6 million. Mycable will support Basler to develop embedded vision technology for a broader group of users. The Mycable results were consolidated in the Basler group on 30 June 2017.
Basler’s gross profit margin slightly increased on last year to 50.3 per cent. The earnings before taxes for the group were positively impacted by economies of scale and amounted to €18.2 million (previous year: €5.3 million). The pre-tax return rate was 23 per cent (previous year: 11 per cent).
The company expects a slowdown in the second half of the year, and its incoming orders are already weakening and returning to normal levels. Basler is working on expanding its capacities and reducing delivery times, as well as securing the supply chain.
Basler has raised its 2017 forecast and now plans within a group’s sales corridor of €140-150 million at a pre-tax margin of 15-18 per cent.
