Supply Chain Solutions segment

Business performance and level of orders

In the Supply Chain Solutions segment, the value of order intake decreased by 9.8 percent in the reporting year to €3,032.4 million (2022: €3,361.9 million). As expected, the global market for warehouse automation solutions weakened after several years of robust growth. There was a significant downturn in demand from customers in the project business (business solutions) as a result. Against this backdrop, the long-term project business (business solutions) saw a marked decline in order intake in the Americas and EMEA regions. Order intake in the APAC region was up, however, in part due to a big-ticket order that was secured in the third quarter of 2023.

Overall demand was weakening in the customer segments general merchandise and apparel, a high proportion of orders was attributable to pure e-commerce providers and grocery retail. The maintenance, modernization, and upgrading that are required for the growing number of solutions installed for customers in previous years led to an increase in the segment’s higher-margin service business (customer services). However, the improved level of orders on hand in the service business was only able to offset the reduction in the volume of orders in the project business to a small extent.

Currency effects reduced order intake by a total of €96.9 million.

As at December 31, 2023, the order book stood at €3,237.5 million and was thus virtually unchanged from its level at the end of the previous year (December 31, 2022: €3,327.5 million).

Revenue

The total revenue of the Supply Chain Solutions segment amounted to €2,997.0 million in the reporting period, which was down by 21.3 percent year on year (2022: €3,806.9 million). This fall in revenue was mainly due to project delays and, in particular, the decline in order intake in the project business (business solutions) from the second half of 2022 onward. The new orders secured in the reporting year, the revenue from which will be recognized over an extended period, will only begin to have a noticeable impact on revenue in subsequent years as they progress through the stages of completion. In contrast to the project business, revenue in the service business (customer services) rose by 7.9 percent year on year due to the maintenance, modernization, and upgrading of the solutions already installed for customers. At 34.9 percent, the contribution of the service business to the segment’s external revenue was greater than in the prior year (2022: 25.4 percent).

Currency effects reduced the SCS segment’s revenue by €84.0 million.

Earnings

Adjusted EBIT for the Supply Chain Solutions segment was comfortably back into positive territory at €44.3 million in 2023 (2022: minus €45.6 million). The adjusted EBIT margin improved to 1.5 percent (2022: minus 1.2 percent).

However, the project business fell behind schedule in working through lower-margin orders from the order book, the contracts for which do not yet include adequate price adjustment clauses. Moreover, the expected overall costs for some projects went up over the course of the year, partly due to delays in their completion. The ongoing measures that had been initiated in 2022 and the slowly growing proportion of higher-margin customer projects contributed to the improvement in earnings achieved in 2023 as a whole.

As market demand is currently muted in the long-term project business of the Supply Chain Solutions segment, staffing capacity was adjusted in 2023 as a short-term countermeasure to reflect the prevailing order situation. This resulted in non-recurring items amounting to an expense of €24.8 million. Total non-recurring items for the segment amounted to an expense of €27.8 million (2022: expense of €10.1 million). After taking into account these effects and an expense of €88.4 million for purchase price allocation effects (2022: expense of €90.9 million), EBIT came to minus €71.9 million overall (2022: minus €146.6 million).

Adjusted EBITDA increased to €124.5 million (2022: €32.2 million); the adjusted EBITDA margin stood at 4.2 percent (2022: 0.8 percent).