The turnover of the provider of integrated solutions in the field of cable and connection technology climbed to 1,864 million euros. Looking ahead to the current financial year (2022/2023), Matthias Lapp, CEO of the Lapp Group, is "cautiously positive" - at the annual press conference on March 2, 2023, he said: "Together with our customers and partners, last year was a real challenge. We expect this to continue - we are consistently investing in the future." We are taking a long-term view, explains CFO Jan Ciliax.

The Lapp Management Board: Matthias Lapp (front), Jan Ciliax, Dr. Christoph Hiller and Georg Stawowy (back from left to right)

© Computers&Automation

In the past 2021/2022 financial year, Lapp once again exceeded the sales growth from the 2020/21 financial year. Turnover increased by 441 million euros (+31%) to 1,864 million euros. The increase in the average copper price and currency developments (+1.9%) contributed around 6.5% to this increase in turnover. Adjusted for these copper and currency effects, there was still a significant increase in turnover of 22.6%. "This growth was mainly due to higher capacities and market share gains in our focus markets in combination with higher market prices. There were also general catch-up effects along the supply chains," explains Ciliax.

The Group made strong gains in all three of Lapp's regions: EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) - the most important region, accounting for around two thirds of Group sales - improved by 29.4% to EUR 1,352 million. In the Americas region (USA, Mexico, Canada, South America), sales soared to EUR 192 million - an increase of 40.2%. And in the APAC region (Asia, Pacific, Oceania), sales climbed by 32.7% to EUR 320 million. As Lapp's average order intake for the year was +6.5% higher than sales, the order backlog also increased to € 356 million as at the reporting date of September 30, 2022, which was significantly higher than the previous year's reporting date. Earnings before taxes (EBT) increased to EUR 132.9 million and the return on sales rose by 1.5 percentage points to 7.1%.

High investments in digitization

In the past financial year, EUR 40.2 million (previous year: EUR 25.8 million) was invested in intangible assets and property, plant and equipment. The focus was on software acquisitions and digitalization projects as well as the further expansion of the ERP system in order to further optimize automation and processes in the areas of finance, HR, production, supply chain, services and procurement. According to the company, an important milestone in the digital transformation is the go-live of the new online store and customer portal, the functionalities of which are being continuously expanded and further developed. Lapp has also pushed ahead with the expansion and further automation of its production plants in France, Germany, India and China.
The expansion of digital sales is an important focus. Lapp's core market continues to be mechanical and plant engineering; other important sales markets include infrastructure, the food industry, logistics and, within the energy sector, photovoltaics and mobility in particular.