BERLIN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Covestro's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) dropped to 459 million euros (511 million U.S. dollars) in the second quarter of 2019, the German producer of high-tech polymer materials announced on Wednesday.
Although EBITDA fell by around 50 percent year on year from 2018, Covestro Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Markus Steilemann said that "we reached our earnings targets and were able to increase our core volumes again in the second quarter".
According to Covestro, weak development in the automotive industry as well as "intense competitive pressure and uncertainties in major sales markets" had caused revenues to fall by 17 percent to 3.2 billion euros in the second quarter of 2019.
The results would "met our expectations in the current economic environment. Thus, we confirm our guidance for the fiscal year", said Thomas Toepfer, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Covestro.
Covestro is expecting "volume growth in the core business to be in the low to mid-single digit percentage range" and a third quarter EBITDA of around 410 million euros.
The German chemical industry association (VCI) recently reduced its forecast for the German chemicals industry after production in the first half of 2019 dropped by 6.5 percent. The association is now expecting production to decrease by 4 percent for the whole year.
At the beginning of July, Covestro's competitor BASF had issued a profit warning for 2019 and is expecting EBITDA to be up to 30 percent lower than last year.
"The economic situation is still challenging, since global economic and political uncertainties remain," said Covestro CEO Steilemann.
