Components

In the 2023 business year, Liebherr successfully increased its revenue in the components segment. Performance once again varied between the individual sales regions. Asia and Oceania recorded revenue growth, driven by Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. There was a decline in revenue in North America and in the Africa, Near and Middle East region. Central and South America also saw a decrease, due primarily to developments in Brazil. Despite growth stimuli in Switzerland, there were also declines in non-EU countries. In the European Union, Germany and France contributed substantially to the increase in revenue.

In the individual industry segments, revenue growth was recorded for tunnel boring machines, machine and plant construction, decentralised energy systems, the mining aftermarket, special-purpose vehicles, conveyorand material handling equipment, and in the construction industry. Business in the wind sector also improved compared to the previous year.

In 2023, Liebherr continued to develop alternative drive technologies, with a particular emphasis on electrification for construction sites, and conducted several field test projects using the mobile Liduro Power Port (LPO) energy storage system to supply power to electric machines without any local emissions. Series production of the LPO in various power ranges with up to 160 kW/kWh is planned for 2024, along with the development of further sizes.

With the EU target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, Liebherr continues to pursue an open approach to technology. This has included validation of the entire combustion engine portfolio and injection technology for use with HVO. The D976 six-cylinder in-line engine for agriculture and construction provided an excellent example of this as the best in its class.

The new digital products covered a wide spectrum in 2023 – from an app for monitoring the mobile energy storage system to a complete IoT solution for industry and mobile machines. The IoT solution was a joint project with renowned technology partners, ensuring not only a security infrastructure with active device management, but also a simple route to IoT and AI applications.

Key projects also included contracts to deliver rope winches for the world’s largest onshore ring crane and to supply a total of 130 components for ten all-electric heavy-lift ship cranes. New areas of application were also opened up, for example the antennas for the next-generation very large array for space exploration. The collaboration with a leading antenna manufacturer was crucial here. The required slewing bearings and drives for azimuth adjustment and inclination of the antennas were supplied.

Investment continued into the expansion of production in China, production facilities for hydraulic cylinders and the construction of a state-of-the-art test facility for validating main bearings for offshore wind turbines in Germany. Liebherr has an optimistic outlook for 2024 in the components product segment and will continue to forge ahead with electrification and the development of digital solutions – be it new-generation mobile digital cameras or solutions such as the LiXplore Bird’s Eye surround view system, camera monitor systems, IoT and person-detection systems.