Q2 increase in sales for Clariant
27/07/2012
At the regional level, Asia-Pacific and Latin America outperformed the other regions with sales growth of 18% respectively 17%, the company said, while Europe was weak, mainly in the southern part of the continent.
Resulting from lower production costs and sales price increases, Clariant’s gross margin increased to 28.7% compared to 27.5% in the second quarter of 2011. The company said a sales price increase of 3% “fully compensated” for a 1% increase in raw material costs year-on-year.
Specific to textiles, the company said that its textile chemicals division had been one of a number of “structurally challenged businesses” that had partly recovered from a weak position in the last few quarters. Textile chemicals achieved single-digit sales growth in local currencies in the second quarter of 2012. Clariant said its closure of a production plant in Switzerland for these products, making them in Asia instead, had been a contributing factor.
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