Pre-tax profit also rose sharply - by 29% to 55.5 million euros. The number of employees worldwide increased by almost 10% to 3770. Around a third of them work in Germany.

The family-owned company benefited from the global trend towards digitalization, among other things. Networking in industry means that more and more data has to be transported, for example in machines, robotics or high-resolution cameras, explained Georg Stawowy, Lapp's Board Member for Innovation and Technology. This would require appropriate cables with very high transmission rates, such as those in Lapp's product range.

The strong increase in sales of 13.9% to EUR 1,026.8 million was also influenced by the positive copper price trend. As the actual price of a cable is always calculated on a daily basis using the current copper price, sales also increased due to the higher copper prices. The increase in sales influenced by copper is around 5% The currency trend had only a minor impact on the sales trend with a minus of 0.3%. Adjusted for the aforementioned influences, turnover grew by around 9%. "This increase is primarily due to our strategic initiatives: We have developed attractive new offers and optimized the work of our sales department. In addition, important sales markets such as mechanical and plant engineering have continued to develop stably," says CFO Dr. Ralf Zander.

As Lapp's financial year ends on September 30, the company can already provide a positive outlook for the current year after almost six months, said Andreas Lapp. "The great story of the past year continued in the first quarter." Both sales and earnings are set to improve further.

Lapp expects important impetus from the further increase in demand for industrial data transmission systems, among other things. Furthermore, the companies SKS Automaatio and SKS Connecto in Finland and Poland were acquired at the turn of the year. With SKS Automaatio and SKS Connecto as leading companies in the fields of automation and cable assembly, the Lapp Group is strengthening its position in these areas, which play a central role in the Lapp Strategy 2020. At the beginning of February, the company also founded the new company Lapp Australia as a joint venture with its long-standing New Zealand partner ECS. With the new joint venture, Lapp aims to further develop the Australian market.