Sales for spinning machinery leader Rieter, headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland, fell by 25% in 2020 as a direct consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, the company is optimistic about a full recovery this year and reports major orders for its new C80 card, E90 comber and ROBOspin piecing robot, all launched at ITMA 2019 in Barcelona. Additional new machinery launches are planned for 2021.

Rieter’s 2020 sales were CHF 573.0 million, compared to CHF 760 million in 2019. Due to the low sales volume, a net loss of CHF 89.8 million was recorded and order intake was 31% down on the previous year.

At the end of 2020, however, the company had an order backlog of about CHF 560 million.

With the exception of Turkey and Africa, all regions were affected by the low demand. In Turkey, Rieter benefited fro  a willingness to invest, with sales up by 83% to CHF 122 million and in Africa a year-on-year increase of 11% was recorded.

The company now expects an order intake in the first half of 2021 exceeding that of the previous half year of CHF 389.5 million. Thanks to improved capacity utilization, Rieter is planning short-time working in only a few areas in the first half of 2021, but still anticipates that sales in the first half will be below its break-even point/ It does, however, expect to achieve an operating profit for the full year 2021.

www.rieter.com