Record Year at Pfeiffer Vacuum

Sales advanced by 12.5% from EUR 159.5 million to EUR 179.5 million, thus surpassing the target corridor of between EUR 175 and EUR 178 million. This increase in sales significantly outpaced the average vacuum market growth of 4%.

Higher sales and strict cost management combined to produce a record operating profit of EUR 44.3 million, up 22% from the operating profit of € 36.2 million in 2005. An EBIT margin of 24.7% (2005: 22.7%) also set a new record in the company’s history.

Pfeiffer Vacuum has thus surpassed its targets in all respects and views the year 2007 with confidence.

As in the year before, the analytical market segment accounted for around 25% of total sales. Customers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany install the company’s small turbo and diaphragm pumps in their compact, portable analytical equipment. In 2006, Pfeiffer Vacuum pumps were qualified in a prototype of a highly innovative new type of electron microscope. The company expects to see significant sales growth here in 2007 and 2008.

The percentage of total sales accounted for by the heterogeneous market segment of industrial applications rose from 24 to 25%. Significant growth was achieved in the research & development sector. Fueled by orders from major research centers and universities in Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, the percentage of sales accounted for by this segment advanced from 19 to 21%. In spite of sales growth in the field of solar technology, the percentage of total sales accounted for by the coating segment declined from 17 to 15% as a result, among other things, of slumping sales in the storage media subsegment. Semiconductor sales remained constant at 11%.

Pfeiffer Vacuum posted sales growth in all regions. The sharpest rises were in Asia, where sales advanced by nearly 21% from EUR 25.8 to EUR 31.2 million. The United States also saw above-average sales growth of around 15% from EUR 36.0 to EUR 41.3 million.

Sales of the company’s most important product, the turbopump, increased by nearly 22 % from EUR 64.4 to EUR 78.3 million. This product category now accounts for nearly 44% of total sales, as opposed to 40% the year before.

Totaling EUR 175.6 million, new orders were up 7.9% from the previous year’s level of EUR 162.7 million. January 2007 saw new orders rise sharply by comparison with both December and the year before. This will afford the company a good utilization factor for the coming months.