CEWE achieves all its corporate targets for 2018

GaryPageau ,

CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA reached its turnover and profit targets for the financial year of 2018. Preliminary calculations show a 9.0% increase in turnover, to 653.3 million euros (2017: 599.4 million euros, turnover target for 2018: 630-665 million euros). CEWE achieved this through positive growth in the CEWE PHOTOBOOK and other photo gifts in the Christmas season. This enabled CEWE to withstand the general weakness in retailing in 2018, which was most affected by the weak summer months. The trend towards mobile devices and apps backs up CEWE’s success: an increasing number of people are taking photos with their smartphone and placing orders, including mobile orders, for more and more photo products showing their personal photos. Operative earnings (EBIT) thus improved in total by 9.2%, to 53.7 million euros (2017: 49.2 million euros), coming very close to the 2018 EBIT target corridor of 48-54 million euros. The fourth quarter of 2018 considerably boosted growth and income: with turnover at 261.6 million euros (+11.6%) and EBIT at 55.7 million euros (+20.8%), CEWE once again clearly exceeded the strong figures of the previous year.

Strong Q4 has a considerable effect on annual net income

The trend, which has been ongoing for many years, was once again confirmed: the fourth quarter is gaining in significance. CEWE generated all of the Group’s annual profits in the fourth quarter. Dr. Christian Friege, Chairman of the CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA Board of Management points out: “We focussed our capacity planning on the seasonal peak. A big thank-you goes to all our staff, who once again made this result possible with their impressive commitment. In spite of extremely high capacity utilisation in our production operations, the CEWE team ensured maximum satisfaction among our customers thanks to the outstanding quality and reliability they achieved around the clock. We thank our customers for the confidence shown in CEWE. With this confidence they are motivating us to be even better in 2019,” CEO Dr. Friege adds.

Growth in the CEWE PHOTOBOOK and photo gifts more than anticipated

The CEWE PHOTOBOOK and photo gifts, such as phone cases, contributed significantly to our annual profit. These products once again achieved best results in the fourth quarter and hence also in 2018: for the year as a whole, sales of the CEWE PHOTOBOOK, at 6.18 million books sold, topped the highest level in the target range of 6.08 to 6.14 million books. The target corridor of 2.12 to 2.14 billion photos sold was also exceeded, with sales totalling 2.23 billion photos. Christian Friege says: “More than ever before, our CEWE PHOTO BOOK and our other digital picture ranges are popular individual, personal Christmas gifts”.

High level of customer satisfaction with product quality and innovation

“Even when capacity utilisation is especially high, as it is in the Christmas season, our customers know that our work absolutely focuses on quality and service at all times. Keeping this brand promise has meant that customer satisfaction has once again been enhanced,” says Christian Friege. CEWE customers have also been excellent at taking up the innovative new products. These include “hexxas” – hexagonal photo tiles which can be randomly hung up on the wall with magnets. During the Christmas season, customers also enthusiastically welcomed our CEWE PHOTOBOOK cover highlights, e.g. in gold, silver or in an effect finish, for which CEWE was distinguished with a prestigious TIPA World Award as the “Best Photo Print Service Worldwide”. Dr. Friege continues: “We benefit from our innovation, the outstanding quality of our CEWE products and the high level of brand loyalty shown by our customers. And we are helped by the trend towards mobile applications and the increase in the use of a smartphone as a really good camera.