Revenue and earnings performance

Economic crisis impacts customer business

SUPPLY CHAIN division revenue for full-year 2009 declined by 8.8% to €12,507 million (previous year: €13,718 million). Fourth-quarter revenue decreased by 8.8% to €3,223 million (previous year. €3,535 million). Organically, the drop in revenue amounted to approximately 6% for both the year as a whole and the fourth quarter. This figure excludes currency translation effects of €–399 million for the reporting year and €–103 million in the fourth quarter. We declined to renew, or exited, a number of underperforming contracts, which will help us to improve our EBIT margin. Around 21% of the organic revenue decline was attributable to these measures to streamline the portfolio, which had little impact on EBIT.

The Supply Chain Business Unit generated revenue of €11,302 million (previous year: €12,469 million). This represented a reduction of 9.4%, or 6.6% on an organic basis. Most regions and sectors were impacted by lower customer volumes due to the economic downturn. In the Americas region, the largest impacts were seen in the Automotive, Technology, Home Delivery and Transport Management sectors. In Germany, revenue fell in the second half of 2009 following the Arcandor insolvency. By contrast, in the United Kingdom the revenue trend was positive due, above all, to growth in the Healthcare sector.