After continued positive market trends which started towards the end of 2020, as well as good progress in their initiatives for integration and sustainability, the Finnish quarrying and mining equipment group Metso Outote grew their order intake in the second quarter by 43%. Supported further by a robust recovery fuelled by infrastructure investments in Europe and the US, and the quarterly orders were higher than in the first quarter.
They believe that many of these new order intakes are a direct result from their “Positive planet portfolio”. This new initiative has been designed help customers improve the sustainability and productivity of their operations. This initiative performed even better than expected, they have already estimated a value of €105m end of June, out of the predicted €120m for 2021. This highlights the ecological trend that we are seeing across most industries.
This does however leave another side to the coin, which is the increase pressure on the global supply chains and logistics, which have left, not only Metso Outote but many players, with very long delivery wait times and many delivery delays. As a result, the group has decided to implement corrective actions and says it will be able to deliver more efficient and sustainable logistics to its customers.
CEO and president Pekka Vauramo said that he was looking to the second half of 2021: “We expect to see further recovery from the pandemic and our customers being active in their ongoing operations and future investments. Sustainability is becoming one of the top priorities for consumers and industries and it is a strategic priority for us as well. Thanks to this approach, we are confident that we are well-positioned and have the most comprehensive offering to help our customers to meet their sustainability and productivity targets.”
Source: Read The Article Source: PSR OE Link™ database
PSR Analysis: Despite the difficulties on the supply side of business, we are seeing a very strong demand across most markets, which is captured in our forecast at 8.6% for the construction market in 2021. This trend should continue for the rest of the year, as long as the pandemic permits. The supply side should adapt in the short term to these new market dynamics, especially as many players are already looking into different possible solutions to the new problems.
We are also noticing a second very important trend, ecology, efficiency, productivity, and sustainability. Although we have been seeing this trend for a while, there seems to be new-found agency. This could be fuelled by the current affairs that could be very good incentives to do the right thing. This is heavily highlighted by the “planted positive portfolio” that has been credited with much praise and high adoption rate.
These trends are set to continue and gain traction throughout the year into 2022. There is however still a looming threat caused by the lasting effects of the covid pandemic, if things continue down this trend it is unlikely to have too much of a negative effect. PSR
Christopher Bamforth is Analyst – European Operations for Power Systems Research
