A good year for Liebherr

The Liebherr Group has published its annual report for 2023. The company’s Maritime Cranes business segment includes its port equipment (mobile harbour cranes, STS cranes and yard gantry cranes), as well as offshore cranes, ship cranes and floating transfer stations. Liebherr does not break out sales of the different crane types, but sales of Maritime Cranes were up 20.3% in 2023 to €977m.

Commenting on the market Liebherr noted that there “was generally a normalisation on the global maritime goods handling market in 2023 in terms of raw material costs and freight rates. Although the global market volume for mobile harbour cranes contracted slightly, Liebherr managed to achieve an increase in revenue in this product area and further strengthen its position as a global market leader.”

In terms of technology, automation and alternative drives continues to be an important focus across the Maritime Cranes segment. All of Liebherr’s RTG orders in 2023 were for fully electric or hybrid machines. “Alongside alternative drives, there is also a particular focus on automation. For instance, the latest series of mobile harbour cranes is equipped with the newly developed Master V control system and state-of-the-art sensor technology. These technologies provide the basis for integrating future assistance and partial automation systems and enabling communication for individual components,” Liebherr said.

In the container crane area, Liebherr has delivered RTGs with automation and remote control to the Port of Duqm in Oman, and has orders for RTGs with similar technology to terminals operated by both Hutchison Ports and APM Terminals.