THE German domestic market has pulled Krone Group through a tough year with business hit by the Russian crisis and EU milk production quotas expiring.
Krone, which includes forage and haymaking gear as well as a road transport trailer division, marked sales of 1.6 billion euro for 2014/15 which was slightly up on the previous year’s results.
Domestic German sales were up 5.2 per cent with agricultural equipment accounting for 32 per cent of domestic sales and 68 per cent by the trailer division.
The results mean Krone generated 29.4 per cent of all sales in Germany - a slight increase over the previous year.
By comparison, sales in markets outside Germany declined slightly.
About 34.6 per cent of the export sales were for agricultural machinery and the balance by the commercial trailer division.
Krone’s agricultural division generated slightly higher sales of 554.5 million euros with 27.9pc of these sales generated in Germany.