Mixed results for European intralogistics suppliers

Two European intralogistics suppliers are reporting diverging results.

Conveying specialist Interroll says supply chain disruptions are causing customers to postpone projects. Meanwhile, Witron Logistik, which builds turnkey automated warehouses for food, near-food and non-food retailers, posted a 48-percent gain in revenues in 2021.

Witron growing

Witron, which is based in Parkstein, Germany, posted revenue growth of US$375 million in 2021, pushing its annual sales over the one billion euro mark for the first time. The family-owned business now includes over 5,100 employees working in 13 countries, including 2021 expansions into Australia and Sweden. 

It has numerous installations in Canada, including a recently announced Walmart facility in Surrey, British Columbia, and several others.

The company completed a 120,000 square metre (1,291,670 sq. ft.) manufacturing plant expansion and added 600 employees, with projections for 1,800 additional employees in the near future. It also plans to significantly expand the U.S. headquarters in Chicago, both in terms of infrastructure and staff members. 

Interroll adjusts

With a good start to the 2022 financial year, Interroll had initially assumed that post-pandemic recovery would continue with improved availability of materials. Based in Sant’Antonino, Switzerland, Interroll was founded in 1959 and has a global network of 35 companies with sales of $664 million and 2,600 employees in 2021. Interroll products are used in express and postal services, e-commerce, airports, food and beverage, fashion, automotive and other industries.

However, the supply chain situation again deteriorated in the second quarter of 2022, related in part to the strict Covid-19 lockdown in China, causing it to reduce its profit outlook for the first half of 2022. 

This and the war in Ukraine caused customers and end-users to postpone a number of projects. This is due to their impaired supply chains, postponements in installation or short-term adjustments in investment activity.

Interroll says, however, that it has a high order backlog and few actual project cancellations. And, while it is not  providing an outlook for the full 2022 financial year, in the medium term the company “sees all fundamental trends for global demand for material-handling solutions remaining intact”.