The Hilti Group grew sales by 4.3 percent in the 2019 business year to CHF 5.9 billion. In local currencies, growth was 6.3 percent against the previous year.
“2019 was another successful year for us with exclusively organic growth. The economic environment has become more volatile while global construction growth has noticeably slowed. Additionally, currencies largely displayed depreciation tendencies against the Swiss franc. Against this background we’re satisfied with our growth level and are pleased that we gained additional market share,” commented Hilti CEO Christoph Loos on the developments in the 2019 business year.
Hilti achieved an increase of 6.9 percent in local currencies in the Europe business region, despite Brexit uncertainties and a substantial downturn of the construction economy in Scandinavia. North America continued to develop positively, advancing 7.3 percent.
Significant growth was also achieved in Latin America (+8.5 percent), where the recovery in Brazil made a considerable contribution. In the Asia/Pacific region, the growth level of 4.3 percent was slowed by the difficult environments in both Hong Kong and South Korea. The situation in the Eastern Europe / Middle East / Africa region remained disparate (+3.7 percent), with Russia and the Eastern European markets driving growth while business remained difficult in the Gulf States and in Turkey due to ongoing political uncertainties.