Austrian steelmaker voestalpine AG has announced its financial results for the first half ended September 30 of the fiscal year 2015-16.
Accordingly, voestalpine's net profit in the first half increased to €421 million, up 33.3 percent compared to the corresponding period of the previous financial year. The revenues of the company amounted to €5.8 billion, up 4.1 percent year on year. In the given period, the company's EBITDA was €892 million, increasing by 17.9 percent year on year, while the EBITDA margin improved from 12.4 percent in the same period of the previous financial year to 13 percent.
According to the company, the first half of the financial year 2015-16 was marked by a relatively stable development for the voestalpine Group. However, the global weakness in the energy sector during summer and the deterioration of steel prices due to the longstanding weakness of the European construction sector and the massive increase in the imports of steel commodities - primarily from China - at a time when Europe is struggling with considerable overcapacity marginally affected the company due to its focus on premium products in both the energy and steel sectors and the company was able to largely compensate it by concentrating on other industrial segments and economic regions. On the other hand, voestalpine Group stated that this strategy will become more difficult in the second half of the current financial year, despite the overall slight upward trend in Europe and a largely stable economic development in North America, as very little demand to speak of can be expected from other global regions.