Market segments - Transportation

Transportation market segment grows thanks to automotive business, EBIT margin expectations missed

With an order intake of CHF 279.0 million, the Transportation market segment reported a strong 25.7 % increase compared to the previous year. Net sales still showed an increase of 10.6 % to CHF 246.4 million. Business developed very differently in the two subsegments. In the automotive subsegment, orders and net sales increased by around half. The electric vehicle growth initiative made a particularly large contribution to this. By contrast, the railway subsegment moved sideways, while sales decreased slightly. Public transport was severely hit by the pandemic, which led to a decline in projects for new rolling stock, especially in China. With an EBIT margin of 5.1 % (PY 7.3 %), the Transportation segment failed to meet expectations. This was due to rising raw material prices, which could not yet be fully passed on to customers in the reporting period, and significant upfront investments in solutions for autonomous driving.

“For the automotive industry, 2021 was a good year despite the many challenges with bottlenecks in the supply chain. The major trends towards electrification and autonomous driving in both passenger and utility vehicles defined the orientation of the market and our successful leveraging of this contributed to our strong sales growth. As automotive manufacturers are systematically switching to electric drives, high growth rates for electric vehicles are projected in the medium to long term. The railway market will not recover from the effects of the corona pandemic in the short term on account of the lower passenger numbers and lower operator revenues. In the medium term, however, further major investments will be required in rail infrastructure for the ecological mobility.”

Drew Nixon, COO Transportation

Our solutions for the Transportation market

Business with automotive applications increased by half – high upfront investments put pressure on profitability

The railway and automotive subsegments made very different contributions to the Transportation segment. In the railway core market, the company felt the impact of significantly lower volumes with high-speed trains in China. Within the automotive subsegment, there was strong demand in the electric vehicle growth initiative for high-voltage distribution solutions in commercial vehicles.
The company is positioning itself in the transportation market with two additional growth initiatives in promising applications that offer high differentiation potential: communications solutions for rolling stock (Rail Communications) and radar antennas with regard to autonomous driving (ADAS – advanced driver assistance system). Both follow the long-term trend that mobility must become safer and travellers want to use their time on the road more efficiently. In particular, the radar antenna business, which is new to HUBER+SUHNER, entailed substantial upfront investments in the reporting year, which will start to make an impact on sales from 2023 onwards.

Transportation segment

Our solutions for the Transportation market

Technologies used in this segment

as % of segment net sales 

11 %

Radio Frequency

3 %

Fiber Optics

86 %

Low Frequency