Annual Report 2001 - Rational

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> MANAGEMENT REPORT
Situation of the segments
millions of euros
Growing internationalisation
RATIONAL also continued its successful course in 2001. The proportion of exports in
the group sales increased further from 78 percent to 80 percent.
The high growth rate of the foreign subsidiaries totalling 20 percent was an
important stability factor in 2001.
Germany – growth at high level
The German market, including OEM customers, is still our largest sales area with
a 20 percent share (previous year: 22 percent) in total turnover. In order to do
justice to the importance of this market, and to ensure direct comparability with
other subsidiaries, the German brand business was spun off into RATIONAL
Großküchentechnik GmbH and, thus, made independent with legal effect from
1st January 2001 and operatively from 1st April 2001.
In the German market, which has already been well developed, replacement
demand plays an important role. Due to exceptionally high customer satisfaction,
the RATIONAL repeat purchase rate is especially high. We are consequently
gaining additional market shares in the replacement business. In the stagnating
German market, unit sales from the brand business grew by 4 percent compared
to the previous year.
Europe without Germany – high growth, against current trends
The European subsidiaries were able to increase their turnover by 21 percent
from 52.8 million euros to 63.7 million euros, in spite of the difficult underlying
economic situation. The development in Italy is especially pleasing, where we
succeeded in increasing turnover from 3.3 million euros to 5.3 million euros,
i.e. by 59 percent.
Revenues
20.5 20.3
9.1
5.3
4.8
3.7
Annual net profit
1,429
1,102
UK France Scandinavia Italy Spain Switzerland
thousand of euros
553
118
38
192