Global demand for textile products remains low, Rieter says
Textile machinery developer Rieter has reported sales revenues of 758.2 million Swiss francs for the first half of 2023, an increase of 22.2% year on year.
It said this growth had come about in spite of some cancellations or postponements of deliveries of new machinery to customers in Turkey following the devastating earthquakes there in early February.
It also reported that new orders it received in the first six months of this year had a value of 325 million francs, down by 62.6% year on year. It attributed this to “cyclical market downturns in individual market segments”.
Commenting on the results, Rieter said: “The challenging market situation over the past two years has been marked by severe disruptions in the global supply chain, in conjunction with rising material, energy, labour and production costs. The current global demand for textile products remains at a low level.”
It said that, to increase long-term value for its customers, employees, and shareholders, Rieter was planning a performance programme it has called Next Level.
The goal of this programme will be “to strengthen sales excellence, sharpen customer focus, improve cost efficiency in production and optimise fixed-cost structures”. It will invest up to 50 million Swiss francs in setting up Next Level and most of the initiatives arising from it will be in place before the end of 2023, it added. It expects the programme of changes to have an impact in 2024 and to result in a reduction in operating costs of around 80 million Swiss francs.
