Duisburg, Germany-based steel and metal distribution company Klöckner & Co. has reported a net profit of €3 million for the first quarter this year, compared to the net loss of €16 million in the same quarter of the previous year. Klöckner's sales revenue decreased by 3.2 percent year on year to €1.57 billion, due to lower price levels in Europe and the weaker US dollar.
Favored by the mild winter, the company's Europe segment increased its turnover by 2.8 percent compared to the first three months of 2013, while turnover declined in the Americas segment by 5.3 percent during the given quarter, due to the long winter in the US, the site consolidation and the reduction in low-margin business.
According to Klöckner, European steel demand will rise by about two percent in the current year. Demand growth is anticipated most of all from machinery and mechanical engineering as well as from the automotive industry. In the US, the long drawn-out winter at first put the brakes on demand recovery in the first quarter. Despite this, the still very robust state of the automotive industry and the anticipated upturn in commercial construction mean that growth of three to four percent should be attained for the year as a whole.