Deutsche Bahn AG recorded a strong recovery from the financial and economic crisis and was back on track for growth in 2010.
Revenues and profits posted double-digit gains while the volume of net capital expenditures rose substantially, and the number of persons travelling via rail surged by 42 million.
During the annual results press conference held on Thursday in Berlin Dr. Rüdiger Grube, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of DB AG, said: “Our goal for the coming years is to make DB AG even more customer-friendly. DB’s business success creates prerequisites for greater service and quality.”
Employees will also benefit from the recovery as DB will repeat the profit sharing payments it made last year and pay €300 to each of the 155,000 entitled employees in Germany.
DB Group’s revenues in 2010 rose over the same year-ago figure by €5.1 billion (+17.3%) to €34.4 billion. Comparable revenues (excluding changes to the scope of consolidation and currency exchange rate effects) increased by €3.1 billion, or 10.6%, to € 32.5 billion. Adjusted results from operations (adjusted EBIT) totaled nearly € 1.9 billion, or € 181 million (+10.7%) over the same 2009 figure.
At the same time, DB increased its net capital expenditures by 14.3%t or €259 million to €2.07 billion. DB was able to once again record substantially higher volumes in all of its relevant markets in 2010. This was especially visible in DB’s rail freight transport and its global transport and logistics activities, which had posted significant declines in some areas in the previous year.
Excluding the acquisition of Arriva, DB Group was able to further reduce its net debt by about €1 billion in 2010. However, as expected, net debt did rise due to the acquisition of Arriva and at December 31, 2010 amounted to €16.9 million, or €1.9 billion more than the same year-ago figure.
CFO Dr. Richard Lutz: “All of our business divisions are back in the black. Even though our profits have not yet reached their pre-crisis level, we can see that the upwards trend is sustained and that we’re on the right track.”
Despite problems experienced with vehicle availability, the number of passengers traveling via DB trains in 2010 rose substantially over the previous year by 42 million, or 2.2% more passengers, to 1.95 billion.
This figure even exceeded the record set in 2008. With a gain of 2.4%, the increase posted for the long-distance transport segment was even greater than DB Regional’s where the number of passengers transported via rail rose by 2.2%.
Arriva’s passenger figures are not included in these results. Volumes sold in the rail passenger transport segment expanded by 2.4% to 78.6 billion passenger kilometers. The number of BahnCards in circulation grew by 5.2% over the previous year’s figure and was 4.3 million at the end of 2010.
The DB Schenker Rail business unit posted significantly higher business volumes as volumes sold surged by 12.6% to 105.8 billion ton kilometers. The volume of goods shipped jumped by 21.8%to 415.4 million tons. Furthermore, the train capacity utilisation rate also climbed by 3.8%. Total revenues grew by 13.0%.
The DB Schenker Logistics business unit posted favorable development in all of its segments and regions. The substantially higher revenues and profits were mainly driven by strong economic growth in Germany and the Asian markets.
The number of shipments noted in European land transport increased by 15.4%. Air freight volumes rose by 18.7%, ocean freight volumes by 15.7%, and the contract logistics business grew by 13.7%. Total revenues posted for the business unit increased by 26.7%.
The economic recovery seen in 2010 led a revival of traffic on the rail network. Volumes produced by DB Netze Track rose by 3.1% over the previous year, or 31 million train-path kilometers (Trkm), to 1,032 million Trkm. Non-Group railways hold a share of about 19%, which rose by 14.6 percent in 2010. The number of station stops grew by 0.3%.
