Despite the challenges, 2021 became a record year for GPV

In the past year, GPV managed to make the most of its production capacity despite global material shortages and logistical challenges. With the year now behind us, the Danish electronics manufacturer is setting new and more ambitious targets as it moves towards 2025.

“2021 developed very differently for the players in our industry. Some were severely affected by the many challenges, while others managed to manoeuvre well and take advantage of opportunities arising from the strong demand,” says GPV CEO Bo Lybæk in a press release. 

He continues to explain that the company's sales team kept close dialogue with customers and that the procurement team kept their heads down focusing on sourcing materials. 

“Design and Engineering steered around the scarcity of resources by supporting customers in redesigning some of their products, Production was adaptable and tried to be agile when the components came into stock, and I could go on. The good result is therefore primarily due to our agility and ability to make maximum use of our production capacity and deliver as much as possible to our customers,” Bo Lybæk says.

The last quarter of the year turned out to be better than expected for GPV, as the company generated revenues of DKK 887 million (EUR 119.2 million) compared to DKK 696 million (EUR 93.5 million) the year before. This brought the full-year revenue to DKK 3.2 billion (EUR 430 million), an increase of 11% compared to 2020, which was the company's previous record year.

Earnings also developed better than last year. In the final quarter of the year, GPV achieved EBITDA of DKK 89 million (EUR 11.95 million) compared to DKK 79 million (EUR 10.6 million) in the same period of 2020. Full-year EBITDA was DKK 342 million (EUR 45.97 million) in 2021 compared to DKK 270 million (EUR 36.29 million) the year before, a 27% increase.

The EMS provider is currently expanding its production capacity via improvements to its production units in Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Mexico. In the short term, GPV says it has and will be installing additional capacity in Thailand, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, and Slovakia, and beginning of 2023, three major expansions will be ready to be put into operation.

In Sri Lanka for example, GPV started the construction of a new factory in October 2021, where production capacity will be expanded by 40%. And last month, GPV signed a contract for building a new mechanics factory in Thailand followed by an expansion of the electronics factory. Combined, this will provide GPV with an expanded capacity of 100,000 square metres of production area.

“Our production capacity has continuously expanded over the years. At the same time, our order flow from existing and new customers has increased accordingly, and today we are facing an order pipeline larger than ever. Therefore, the timing is just right to initiate new factory constructions and take another big growth step,” Bo Lybæk explains in the press release.

Moving deeper into 2022 there are still challenges on the horizon, the scarcity of components is still creating issues within the industry and as Bo Lybæk says, long lead times of up to 40-50 weeks on selected components and logistical challenges that have so far only improved slightly.

“According to our forecasts, we do not expect any significant improvements until in second half of 2022, however visibility is still poor, and a lot can happen,” the CEO notes.

For the year 2022, GPV expects the level of activity to be maintained and to that its revenues for 2022 will reach a level of DKK 3.2 – 3.4 billion (EUR 430 – 457 million).