COVID-19 causes JCB sales drop

Construction vehicle manufacturer JCB has reported a drop in sales last year due to the impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic. The company’s turnover between 2019 and 2020 fell from £4.2bn to £3.1bn, following a decrease in machine sales from 92,216 to 74.590. This was due to the closure of construction sites globally because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

JCB remains profitable despite the negative impacts of the pandemic

In spite of these difficulties, the company was still able to make a profit in 2020 with high hopes for this year and into the future. Graeme Macdonald, Chief Executive Officer of JCB, said: “In March 2020, £1 billion worth of orders disappeared overnight with the onset of Covid-19, and JCB was forced to close its 21 manufacturing plants around the world for around two months. Despite the severe impact on its business, JCB remained profitable in 2020 as it has done for the past 76 years”

Commenting on profitability in 2021, Macdonald said: "The turnaround in 2021 has been dramatic: we are sitting here now in September with four times the usual order bank we had in normal times two to three years ago. As a result, we are ramping up production to levels we have not had before. I have never seen anything like it in my career.”

JCB Chairman Lord Bamford added that the “past is the past and, while 2020 was undoubtedly one of the most difficult years in our history, our focus is now very firmly on the future.

"We continue to lead the way in zero-emissions technology, particularly with the development of the construction equipment industry’s first internal combustion engine powered by hydrogen, which is already being tested in JCB machines. This is a great British breakthrough and we will be producing these engines by the end of next year,” he concluded.