Need for power, productivity at low environmental impact will drive demand
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| Chairman and President of ABB China Brice Koch in media roundtable. | |
Shanghai, China, Oct. 29, 2007 – ABB, the leading power and automation technology company, expects sustained revenue growth and increased profitability under its new mid-term strategy for 2007 to 2011, as Asia continues to outpace other regions.
ABB expects demand for power infrastructure, major projects in rail, wind, oil and gas, and water, and investments in higher productivity and energy efficiency, to be motors of growth. The Asian market for ABB’s technologies is set to expand by 52 percent to $88 billion over the period, overtaking Europe which is forecast to grow by 24 percent to $83 billion.
“ABB is in the right businesses to support Asia’s economic growth while limiting emissions,” said Fred Kindle, ABB President and CEO. “Electrical energy is the driving force of modern economies, and ABB’s technologies help customers to use it efficiently.”
About four-fifths of the potential energy in primary sources is wasted in the process of power generation, transmission, distribution and end use. By increasing efficiency at each stage of this chain, ABB technologies can cut these losses by half, and the company is now devoting more than 50 percent of its research efforts to raising energy efficiency still further.
The company is targeting revenue growth of 8 to 11 percent from 2007 to 2011, while the global economy is expected to grow by about 3 percent a year and ABB’s markets by about 6 percent a year. ABB expects to hire an additional 20,000 people worldwide by 2011.
ABB is celebrating 100 years of successful business in China, starting with the delivery of its first steam boiler in 1907 and including work on major projects such as the Three Gorges dam and the Beijing Olympics. ABB now has 25 local companies and 38 sales and service branches throughout China.
As ABB’s flagship market in Asia Pacific area, China is also host to several of the company’s global businesses, including Robotics, Marine, Power Electronics and Metal. The Group has two research centers and 20 manufacturing sites in China. More than 10 percent of the Group’s employees are Chinese.
“We are proud of the role we have played helping China develop its power network and industrial infrastructure,” said Brice Koch, Chairman and President of ABB’s holding company in China. “We have been taking seriously our commitment to helping the communities around us with projects to protect the environment, support education and help the disadvantaged.”
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in about 100 countries and employs more than 110,000 people.