Weather and environmental measurement specialist Vaisala has continued to build on a strong start to the year with net sales of €120.5m (US$122m) for Q2, an increase of 10% year-on-year. This brought the company’s order book at the end of the period to €182.9m (US$186m), an increase of 11% year-on-year and a new record.
For the first half of the year (Jan-June 2022), orders increased by nearly 14% to reach €256.9m (US$261m), while net sales increased by 19% to €239.3m (US$243m).
The company said that sales had been particularly strong in industrial measurements, but the meteorology segment had fallen short from the previous year, primarily due to a “lack of large project orders.”
Kai Öistämö, Vaisala president and CEO, said, “Vaisala had yet another excellent quarter despite the challenging market environment. Strong demand continued during the second quarter and our order book reached a new record level of €183m (US$186m). We succeeded in maintaining good delivery performance, which resulted [in] excellent 10% net sales growth.
“Our second quarter order intake grew strongly in the industrial measurements business area. The strongest market segment was industrial instruments, with [the] life science and power industry market segments growing nicely as well. Orders received in the ground transportation market segment were back to more normal quarterly levels and the aviation market segment continued its recovery towards pre-pandemic levels. The meteorology market segment fell short [from] the previous year’s strong second quarter. Overall, the weather and environment business area has suffered from a lack of large project orders.
“The war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia did not have or are not expected to have a direct material impact on Vaisala, although we decided to suspend all our business in Russia and Belarus in March. Vaisala’s historical average annual net sales to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have totaled only 1-2% of our annual net sales. Inflation, weakening of economic development, as well as [the] continuation of the pandemic and related shut down measures – especially in China – create uncertainty in [the] economic environment. Weak visibility to component availability and component supply constraints are expected to continue throughout 2022, and additional material costs related to spot purchases are expected to remain at a high level during the second half of 2022. Despite these headwinds, we continue to estimate that our full-year 2022 net sales will be in the range of €465-495m (US$472-503m) and operating result (EBIT) to be in the range of €55-70m (US$56-72m).”