Hexagon says the launch of new mining products this year can help its mining-heavy autonomous solutions business return to the strong growth levels of 2023 after the division, along with a number of others, endured flat market conditions in 2024.
The Swedish technology company reported a 1% year-on-year rise in fourth quarter sales to €1.45 billion, taking full-year revenue to €5.4 billion. EBIT was up marginally at €1.6 billion for the year.
Mining made up 53% of Autonomous Solutions 2024 revenues of €558 million, down 2% yoy, about 8% of Geosystems, down 4% yoy at €1.55 billion, and 5% of Asset lifecycle intelligence sales of €832 million, up 7% yoy.
“The mining business saw growth in critical safety solutions, offset by lower growth in operations,” Hexagon interim CEO Norbert Hanke said.
“Autonomy and Positioning [A&P] grew overall, with strong growth in marine positioning and a solid performance in aerospace and defence offsetting weakness in agriculture markets.
“Growth in both A&P and mining benefitted from the ramp up of the [Mineral Resources] autonomous road train project in Australia.”
Hexagon chief strategy officer Ben Maslen said the company billed initial revenues from the Western Australia iron ore autonomous road project in Q4 2024.
“In mining we saw a slight decline in the quarter, reflecting a tough comparative a year ago and a customer pause ahead of a product upgrade cycle scheduled for 2025 which we think will drive resumed growth,” he said.
“Autonomous Solutions had very strong 2023 so this year was always going to be a bit tough in terms of comparatives. And underlying markets such as agriculture were weaker.
“But as we go through 2025 and we launch new products, particularly on the mining side, we would hope to see the reacceleration of growth.”
Hexagon could again be busy on the acquisition front in 2025, Maslen said.
“The M&A pipeline still looks good for this year [with] a lot of interesting targets,” he said.
“We’ll see what happens over the rest of this year.”
