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Autoneum Annual Report 2016
Letter to Shareholders
as
Dear shareholders
2
Anniversary Year with
New Record Highs
An uncompromising focus on operational
excellence enabled Autoneum to once again set
new financial records in 2016: Thanks to the
innovative product portfolio, efficiency enhance-
ments in production and the globally diversified
customer base, net sales and profitability
reached new highs. While the growth in net
sales was particularly driven by the Asia region,
Business Group Europe made a significant
contribution to the increase in profitability.
Based on the further improvement in results
compared with the previous year, the Board
of Directors proposes a dividend of CHF 6.50
(2015: CHF 4.50) per share.
Sales growth again above market level
Following a prior year lacking in momentum, the
automotive industry picked up again in 2016.
With 93 million light vehicles produced world-
wide and growth of around 5%, an upward trend
was recorded, albeit with an intensity that
varied greatly from region to region. Production
volumes in Eastern Europe virtually stagnated,
while significant growth was recorded in
Western Europe. After an already strong
previous year, North America only recorded
a slight growth in volumes. Mainly driven by
the growth market of China, automobile produc-
tion in Asia was greater than in other regions,
with gains of over 7% on 2015. Automobile
manufacturers and suppliers in South America
remained affected by the ongoing economic
crisis in 2016, which resulted in a further year-on-
year drop in vehicle production. However,
thanks to high production volumes and corre-
sponding sales increases in Asia, Autoneum
was able to offset weaknesses in demand in
other regions and thus increase year-on-year
net sales in local currencies by 6.8% in 2016.
Net sales in Swiss francs rose by 3.2% from
CHF 2085.9 million to CHF 2152.6 million.
8.2%
The EBIT margin before special effects exceeded
the 8% mark for the first time.