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PRYSMIAN GROUP | DIRECTORS’ REPORT
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The North American market, previously affected by largely flat demand for products serving infrastructure
construction, confirmed its signs of growth in 2015. In Canada, the renewables sector (wind farms) continued
to display growth in demand.
In South American markets, however, Brazil remained weak, with demand in line with the previous year,
caused by slowdown in the industrial and residential construction sectors and uncertainties about political
stability.
The growth trend was positive in Asia, particularly in China and other markets like Indonesia and Malaysia,
while demand continued to stagnate on the Australian construction market, affected by strong competitive
pressures from Asian operators.
The Power Distribution business line reported a growth in demand during 2015 compared with 2014.
The trend in the principal European countries reflected generally stagnant energy consumption, which in turn
adversely affected demand by the major utilities. The latter, operating in a recessionary economic
environment, either maintained an extremely cautious stance in view of the difficulties in forecasting future
growth, or else they concentrated on restructuring to improve efficiency and reduce supply-side costs. As a
result, the competitive environment in terms of price and mix remained extremely challenging almost
everywhere.
However, some countries saw a resumption of investments to increase and improve distribution network
performance, and in some cases the level of investment has been considerable, like in Germany and the
Nordic countries; the positive trend was most buoyant in markets with growing per capita energy needs, such
as South America and Asia.
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
Sales to third parties by the E&I business area amounted to Euro 2,795 million in 2015, compared with Euro
2,677 million in 2014, posting a positive change of Euro 118 million (+4.4%) due to the combined effect of
the following main factors:
positive organic growth of Euro 79 million (+3.0%);
increase of Euro 77 million (+2.8%) for exchange rate fluctuations;
sales price reduction of Euro 38 million (-1.4%) for metal price fluctuations.
Prysmian Group continued its strategy in this business area of focusing on business relationships with top
international customers and its development of tactical actions to avoid losing sales opportunities, by
differentiating its offer in the various markets and by increasing its market share in specific geographical
areas. This has led to a very complex commercial strategy, not only focused on improving the sales mix, but
also aimed at regaining market share while seeking to minimise the impact on sales margins.
The general precariousness of demand for infrastructure, combined with the state of energy consumption,
certainly affected the Group's performance in some European markets, with the exception of North Europe,
Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as North America and certain Asian markets, where growth
opportunities were able to be grasped.