A result of digitisation: Why the profits of German corporations (first) fall

The German companies are struggling with falling margins. With this set, the consultancy firm EY overwrites your most recent analysis of the development of the 100 best-selling market-listed German companies. Although the 100 largest listed companies have increased their sales in the first nine months of 2018 (January to September) to a percent to 1.25 trillion euros – which is also still an increase in revenue absolute of 12 billion euros. But the profit (before interest and taxes, Ebit) decreased compared to the comparable prior-year period by seven per cent to almost EUR 105 billion.

Georg Giersberg

editor in the business, responsible for “The economist”.

F. A. Z.

“Accordingly, profitability also decreased: The average Ebit margin declined from 9.2 to 8.4 percent,” writes EY and engages with the current discussion. For a long time already is not discussed, why the profitability is increasing in spite of the General digitization. If you look at the Numbers a little closer, it looks not so gloomy.

For a rose to profitability in the (greatly from the digitization of profit) information technology the most (plus 39 percent). Also, the wafer manufacturer Siltronic, with a margin of 34 percent, far ahead. The largest decline of 56 percent of the of the digitization negatively affected trade recorded. Absolutely, with only minor declines, still driving the car manufacturer Volkswagen and Daimler, the highest profits ahead of Bayer and BMW.

“Who is fully digitized, also gaining back productivity,”

but in the case of the car manufacturers as in most industries, the productivity of companies increases so strongly, Klaus helmrich, member of the management Board of Siemens AG, as a temporary phenomenon. “In times of transition from analogue to digital was accompanied by manufacturing complexity to outweigh the costs. But permanently, the digitization is also notable productivity gains,“ he says.

The digitisation will lead to productivity increases of between three and seven per cent in the year, but they are outweighed by the Complexity costs. These expenses include programming costs, depreciation and amortization for investments, start-up difficulties and Similar work in Parallel. “Who are fully digitalized, also gaining back productivity,” says Helmrich.