Global market leadership
For over half a century now, Bekaert has shown its pioneering spirit by investing in emerging markets worldwide. We were among the world’s first to set up operations in Latin America, Asia and Central Europe when early signs of opportunities appeared. Today, our production platforms in the emerging markets are operating at high capacity utilization. Overall, they account for 74% of our combined sales in 2010.
In spite of the economic downturn in 2009, we never stopped investing in these emerging markets. And in 2010 we stepped up this investment policy, on a broader scale and at an accelerated pace. And not just in China. Bekaert is investing significantly in its production activities in India, Indonesia, Russia and Slovakia. This is how we are able to strengthen our production platforms in the growth markets in order to further consolidate the base for our global market leadership strategy.
In the mature markets we continue to diversify our product offering and introduce innovations that make our products stronger, more durable and more eco-friendly.
In Latin America Bekaert manufactures a broad product portfolio spread over the region: from wire and cord solutions for the automotive industry to barbed wire for agriculture, and meshes and ropes for mining. This well balanced mix of markets and products resulted in satisfactory performance for the whole region in 2010. We met growing demand in agriculture, construction, automotive and utilities markets.
Both the automotive and the energy and utilities sectors in Asia Pacific performed outstandingly. In the overall sales volume for the region in 2010 they represent shares of 50% and 36% respectively.
Even though the industrial platform in North America is going through difficult times, business in the automotive sector has picked up again. As for the energy and utilities sector, the recession year 2009 almost brought investments in the oil & gas industry to a complete halt.
In the EMEA region Bekaert is present in both the mature Western European markets and the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe. The mix of market maturity and the alignment of product offerings to local market needs are major reasons why Bekaert performed fairly well in Europe in 2010. The construction and automotive sectors showed good performance in Central Europe, illustrating the high correlation between Bekaert’s growth and industrial growth. In the Western European markets, however, the construction sector faced many challenges.
Bekaert will continue to step up the implementation of its strategy of global market leadership. However, we must remain cautious in order to be ready to take on the challenges that lay ahead. Pioneering in a world that is trying hard to find its economic and political balance means entering highly volatile market conditions. Even though Bekaert has taken great strides in 2010, many more have yet to be taken in order to ensure that we can continue to achieve high performance.
