By Andreas Kissler
FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Dow Jones) – According to its industry association ZVEI, the revenues of the German electrical and digital industry came to 18.1 billion euros in December 2021 – an increase of 8.5 percent compared to the same month last year. For 2021 as a whole, the aggregated industry revenues recorded an increase of 9.7 percent and reached the record value of 199.5 billion euros. In December 2021, the electrical and digital industry recorded a 34.1 percent increase in orders compared to the previous year. “This significant increase again is not least due to a number of major orders,” said ZVEI chief economist Andreas Gontermann. According to the association, there is an increase in orders of 23.9 percent in the books for the whole of 2021.
Domestic orders increased by 42.0 percent in December, foreign orders by 27.6 percent. 19.8 percent more orders were received from the euro area than in the previous year. Customers from third countries increased their orders by 32.0 percent. For the year as a whole, incoming orders from Germany grew by 20.1 percent and from abroad by 27.0 percent. While customers from the euro zone increased their orders by 23.1 percent last year, orders from countries outside the common currency area increased by 29.2 percent.
The price-adjusted production of electrical and electronic goods in December was 3.4 percent up on the previous year. Overall, it grew 8.8 percent last year, more than making up for 2020’s 6 percent loss. “For 2022, the ZVEI expects real production growth of four percent,” said Gontermann. At 88.5 percent, capacity utilization in the industry at the beginning of the first quarter of 2022 was just as high as at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2021. The order range fell slightly from 5.4 to 4.8 production months, but remains historically high.
According to the ZVEI, the companies in the industry only slightly increased their production plans in January of this year. “However, supply bottlenecks continue to complicate their implementation,” said Gontermann. While recently only 8 percent of the companies had reported insufficient orders, material shortages and a shortage of skilled workers burdened 88 percent and 41 percent of the industry companies respectively. According to the ZVEI, the business climate in the German electrical and digital industry also increased at the beginning of the year: Both the assessment of the current situation and the general business expectations were again significantly better in January 2022 than in the previous month.
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DJG/tank/apo
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 08, 2022 02:43 ET (07:43 GMT)