Caterpillar has announced its Q4 and full year 2013 results with a stronger than expected performance, although sales and revenues were down on 2012.
Mining led the way down…
In Q4, the equipment manufacturer made US$ 14.4 billion, down 10% from US$ 16.1 billion in Q4 2012, while full year sales and revenues were 16% down to US$ 55.7 billion – about US$ 10 billion down on 2012. In a statement the company blamed the drop in sales and revenues on a sharp drop in new machine sales in the mining industry.
"We expected there would be a decline in mining sales in 2013, and it turned out to be worse than we anticipated," Doug Oberhelman, Caterpillar’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
… and will remain weak in 2014
Looking forward to 2014, the company said it expected a similar performance to 2013 with sales and revenues at about US$ 56 billion in a range of plus or minus 5%. This will be based on improved performance in the construction industries and power systems segments driven by expected global GDP growth of 3%.
In the mining sector, however, the company foresees another difficult year. Despite predicting more stability in commodity prices and increased mine production, Caterpillar still expects sales to drop again this year as mining company remain cautious on CAPEX.
Brad Halverson, Caterpillar chief financial officer, discusses the company results:
Written by Jonathan Rowland