WASHINGTON: The CEO of Kalmar’s parent company has said that the pace of customer decision making has slowed down in 2016. In his statement on Cargotec’s third-quarter results, Mika Vehviläinen said: “Kalmar’s result was also satisfactory; however, the pace of customer decision making has slowed down, which could be seen in declining order numbers.” According to the results statement, Kalmar received no big project orders in Kalmar in the third quarter and orders were down 16% on the previous year to €389m (US$422m). In the year as a whole, orders received are down 6% on the previous year.
“Kalmar’s long-term market potential,” Vehviläinen claimed, “is still strong: bigger ship sizes and the need to develop ports and make operations more effective require investments in port technology and automation. The number of potential projects is still large, but customers are delaying their investment decisions.” He also said that the company is focussing on improving its competitiveness, the cost-efficiency of products and on digitalisation, services and leadership development.
