Industrial automation and power specialist Schneider Electric today celebrated a surge in third-quarter sales. The company revealed that the three months ended Sept. 30 produced a 12% spike in comparable business, with sales reaching €5.4 billion.
Schneider’s third-quarter performance received a sizable boost from its Areva Distribution unit, which Schneider acquired in June. Areva, which sells electrical substations and grid management technologies to the utilities industry, delivered €629 million to the top line in the third quarter. With Areva’s contribution included in the accounting, sales were up nearly 38% year over year. Schneider did not report earnings results.
The top-line total was a welcome contrast to the same period in 2009, when Schneider and many of its fellow automation providers suffered at the hands of a manufacturing community reluctant to make technology investments.
Today, Schneider President and CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire declared in a statement that accompanied the results, “All our end-markets are now past their trough.”