ETHIOPIA – Krones, global manufacturer of filling and packaging technology, has inaugurated a new glue manufacturing facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

H.E Stephan Auer the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ethiopia, Gary Zeller Managing Director of Krones East Africa and Stephan Maschke Managing Director of KIC Krones officially opened the facility that will serve its customers in Ethiopia and neighbouring markets with locally manufactured cold glue for their labelling needs.

“We are very happy to celebrate the inauguration of our glue manufacturing facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

“Krones is committed to the Ethiopian Market and will continue to be a strong partner and strengthen our efforts to serve our customers,” highlighted the company on a LinkedIn post.

Headquartered in Neutraubling, Germany, Krones designs and implements complete lines for beverages and food, which cover each individual production process step – starting from product and container production, filling and packaging all the way up to material flow and container recycling.

The company is reported to have had a good start to the 2022 financial year as its order intake from January to March 2022 increased by a substantial 45.4% year on year, from €1.068 billion (US$1.12 billion) to €1.553 billion (US$1.62 billion).

This is the highest order intake for a single quarter in the entire history of Krones. The order backlog also reached a record high level with orders on hand totalling €2.459 billion (US$2.57 billion) as of 31 March 2022.

The order backlog was consequently €1.054 billion (US$1.10 billion) or 75.0% up on the prior-year quarter and 29.9% more compared to the beginning of 2022.

The exceptionally large forward reach of the order backlog secures stable production capacity utilisation for the coming quarters.

The high orders coupled with flexible production management triggered a revenue improvement by 12.9% year on year, from €874.6 million (US$913 million) to €987.2 million (US$1.03 billion).

Despite a global material shortages and tight supply chains, Krones was able to maintain stable production capacity utilisation in the first quarter of 2022.

In addition, the company was able to offset higher material, freight and travel costs thanks to extensive measures to increase efficiency and the initial effects of the price increases on its machines and lines.

The company increased earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 13.7% year on year to €87.0 million (US$90 million). The EBITDA margin improved slightly from 8.7% in the previous year to 8.8%.

Meanwhile, its Earnings before taxes (EBT) went up between January to March 2022 by 22.6% to €54.7 million (US$57.1 million). The EBT margin consequently rose to 5.5%.

In total, Krones generated consolidated net income of €40.1 million (US$41.8 million) in the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 22.3%.

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