German based company Schott reports substantial increase in sales and earnings.

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10 Dec 2006

Schott AG, based in Mainz, Germany, continues on its growth path. The international technology group expects a significant increase in sales and yet another rise in earnings for its fiscal year 2005/2006 (ended on 9/30). "We succeeded in meeting all of our ambitious goals. In fact, in some areas, we even exceeded them," explained Prof. Udo Ungeheuer, Chairman of the Board of Management, upon presentation of the preliminary figures. The Schott Group will be holding its annual results press conference on March 8, 2007.

Schott recorded total sales of 2.233 billion euros for the fiscal year. This represents an increase of 19 %. All business segments contributed towards this growth. The development of sales was structurally affected by the complete consolidation of solar activities for the first time ever, following the acquisition of 50 % of the shares in RWE Schott Solar GmbH on October 1, 2005. Sales from laboratory glass activities, an area sold effective March 1, 2005, made no contribution whatsoever towards the results for fiscal 2005/2006. Even without these extraordinary items, Schott still succeeded in growing organically thanks to a 14 % increase in sales.

During its last business year, Schott also continued to pursue the modernization process it first started two years ago. "A number of strategic measures were initiated to help us build a stronger foundation for improving our competitive position and, thus, achieve continued growth," explained Professor Ungeheuer. This includes pursuing even stronger market orientation. Today, Schott is active with its own manufacturing and sales organizations in 38 countries. Only recently, new sales offices were opened in the Czech Republic, Malaysia and Dubai, for the Middle East region.

Schott also made progress with respect to expanding its future ventures. The company is known to be the only European vendor capable of using the float technique to produce up to 0.7 mm thin glass substrates for use in TFT-LCD applications. These high-quality thin glasses are designed for use in flat screen televisions and monitors for computers, as well as laptops. In fiscal 2005/2006, Schott invested 150 million euros in a second melting tank and a production line in Jena and a post-processing plant for these substrates in South Korea in order to assume a leading position in this dynamic high growth market.

Schott is currently the only company in the world that offers products that support all types of solar technologies, including Photovoltaics, solar thermal for heating up water, auxiliary heating and cooling, as well as centralized generation of electrical power. To supplement its existing photovoltaic manufacturing capacities, 60 million euros is now being put towards building a 30 MW manufacturing facility for ASI® thin-film modules in Jena. This technology requires substantially less of the rather expensive raw material silicon.