German computer group Siemens-Nixdorf nformationssysteme AG said on Tuesday it appeared headed for double-digit growth in sales and orders as a result of rising overseas business.
Both sales and orders in the first 11 months of 1996/97 rose 12 percent, with foreign sales rising 19 percent and foreign orders climbing 21 percent, the unit of Siemens AG said at a news conference. SNI set a goal of more than doubling business volume to more than DM30 billion ($16.6 billion) by the middle of the next decade, and said it was reorganising to focus on two core areas of computing products and information solutions.
The company also said it aimed for a five percent return on sales in Europe, but did not give a target date.
To reach its growth targets, SNI was striving to reach average annual growth rates of 40 percent in Asia, 20 percent in the United States, 10 percent in Europe and five percent in Germany. By 2005 SNI aimed to draw one third of its sales from Germany, another third from the rest of Europe, and the final third from the rest of the world.
Foreign growth clearly drove its sales and orders totals for the 11-month period to August 31. Domestic sales in the period were up nine percent and domestic orders up eight percent.
Beginning November 1, SNI planned to split its operations into a product and service business unit with DM10 billion in sales, and a solutions and business services unit with about five billion marks in sales.
Last year SNI reported pretax profit of only 52 million marks on sales of 13.6 billion marks.
In July, Siemens chief financial officer Karl-Hermann Baumann said he expected SNI pretax profit to double to more than 100 million marks in business year 1996/97. ($ = 1.805 German Marks)