Injection moulding machinery manufacture Arburg (Lossburg / Germany; www.arburg.com) is looking back at 2020 with mixed feelings. The German company, which is accustomed to growth, can possibly not be satisfied with last year’s sales of EUR 578m. This does, after all, amount to a 22% drop, compared to 2019. While the first nine months of 2020 were weak, business picked up rapidly towards the end of the year. “We got going again in September,” said Arburg’s managing director of Sales, Gerhard Böhm, while talking to Plasteurope.com, and added, “In November and December, things really took off. Incoming orders increased at an enormous pace, and we experienced very strong growth.”

In light of this booming demand, it is now a matter of “quickly stepping up all our processes into top gear”, explained Böhm, given that the company was not working full-time from March to October 2020, and must now ensure that delivery times are not excessively extended. Many companies from a range of customer industries are currently eager to invest in the modernisation or expansion of their machine fleets. “There is a huge demand backlog, and we have enough orders to last well into next year.”

Exports to North America in particular are especially gratifying for the sales director. But the European market and, above all, Italy have made an “excellent” recovery. Business to Asia is good but is still suffering from the unavailability of containers.

The “exceedingly problematic” supply situation is a headache for Böhm. “When it comes to sheet metal and electronics, in particular, we’re operating on a knife-edge, and this is keeping us very occupied at present.” While Arburg has good material stocks and a high in-house production depth for its machines, “we cannot do much more in-house than we do currently”.

Böhm thus only ventures an almost-forecast for the current business year: “2018 was the fifth record year in succession for us, with sales of EUR 754m.” Despite a very good first half of 2021, the company is not expected to be able to beat that.