Sika has reported an 18 per cent YoY increase in sales to CHF5250.3m (US$5424m) in the first half of 2022. In local currencies this equates to growth of 19.5 per cent. Operating profit (EBIT) over the same period advanced by 22.7 per cent YoY to CHF841.9m with a record EBIT margin of 16 per cent. According to the company, higher input costs due to a substantial rise in the cost of raw materials were offset by price increases, despite the difficult geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.
"The market conditions have become more challenging for us as well. Nevertheless, we were able to fully exploit the strengths of our business model and organisation over the past six months and generate good results. Thanks to our broad diversification, we operate in several markets with different levels of maturity, and we can leverage our solutions across a broad base. Our technologies are innovative, sustainable, and of high quality. We are largely able to offset the increase in price for raw materials with higher product prices, and supply bottlenecks were resolved via our global procurement organisation. The current challenges will remain in the second half of 2022, but I am confident that we can meet our targets for 2022 thanks to our dedicated employees," said Thomas Hasler, CEO, Sika.
The EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region saw sales in local currencies advance by 12.9 per cent YoY. While countries in Africa and the Middle East are seeing dynamic double-digit growth, a slight downtrend is noticeable in project business in western European countries. Sika moved to a new site in Tanzania and is now producing mortars locally in addition to concrete admixtures. The Americas region saw growth in local currencies of 35.8 per cent YoY. Sika generated a large part of this growth from infrastructure projects with additional strong demand from investments in commercial construction projects, such as stadiums, warehouses and data centres. Sales in the Asia/Pacific region rose by 17 per cent YoY in local currencies. In China the distribution business benefited from ongoing strong growth momentum, recording double-digit growth rates.
