"The continuously successful work performed by development, marketing and production as well as the untiring commitment of our sales subsidiaries and partners in the individual countries have made this good result possible," said Rolf Meyer, president of marketing and sales and speaker of the Executive Committee, on presenting the balance sheet at the company's press conference.
"We have completed our anniversary year with record sales figures," said Meyer. "Strong new products, especially in the professional wireless segment, have enabled sales to rise by 38.7 million to 300.4 million. That is an increase of 14.8 percent." Headphones from Sennheiser are market leaders not only in Germany: according to the market research group GfK, the company has excellent value-based market shares throughout Europe in four out of five headphone categories, and in some case these account for one third of overall market sales. Professional wireless technology, which makes up the largest proportion of sales, also enjoyed excellent growth, as did the joint venture Sennheiser Communications, the specialist for headsets in the contact centre, office and PC sectors, which increased its sales by 65 percent. "We are also very satisfied with the Group's profits. These have risen sharply, as the nominal slight fall in earnings is due entirely to the influence of extraordinary items from the previous year."
Profits of 13.6 million for 2004 take into account a positive extraordinary item totaling 6 million for insurance payments for the fire at Sennheiser's Irish production plant. For 2005, the final insurance payment for the fire damage amounted to an extraordinary item of 2.2 million, contributing to earnings of 13.0 million. Worldwide, Sennheiser's workforce increased to an average of 1,668 employees, 57 percent of whom work in Germany.
Sennheiser's subsidiaries and partners achieved two-figure growth rates in all sales regions. The American continent saw an increase of 15.0 percent to 88.9 million, thus remaining the region with the strongest sales, followed by the region Western and Southern Europe/Africa with a rise in sales of 75.8 million (up 10.7 percent). Sales in Central Europe went up by 18.9 percent to 61 million, while Northern and Eastern Europe had sales of 46.4 million (up 13.2 percent). The highest rate of growth - 19.6 percent - was achieved by the region Asia and Australia, where sales rose to 28.3 million. Overall, 82.5 percent of the total sales volume was generated outside Germany.
One focus in 2005 was on converting production to processes and components that comply with the EU directive on the reduction of hazardous substances (RoHS). "The hazardous substances named in the European directive have been completely excluded from our products," Bartels said. "All factories are now RoHS compliant." The manufacturing technologies at the German Sennheiser plants in Wennebostel and Burgdorf have been extensively modernized, including the use of X-ray technology for quality assurance in electronics production.
"New developments accounted for 44.7 percent of our sales," said Dr. Heinrich Esser, president research and development. "In 2005, these included, for example, the new top-of-the-range handheld transmitter SKM 5200 and the new wireless monitoring system 3250. New headphone models, both in the segment of classical headphones and in our PX and PXC range of folding models, had a positive influence on our consumer electronics bu
