Igus reaches one billion in sales and increases number of active customers

This is the result of continuous investment in research and development in order to offer customers innovative solutions. Despite the challenging geopolitical and economic situation in 2024, the motion plastics specialist was able to increase the number of active customers by 5% and maintain its billion-euro turnover. With a turnover of 1.105 billion euros, the company recorded a comparatively moderate decline in turnover of 2.5%.

"The changing political and economic conditions are also leaving their mark on us," explains Tobias Vogel, Managing Director of Bearing and Linear Technology at igus. "Like many of our customers, we are also looking at savings and increased efficiency, for example through increased automation in our factory. However, our focus is always on the question: How does the customer benefit? For us, the challenges are even more of an incentive to break new ground and demonstrate our innovative strength 'made in Germany' in order to strengthen both our competitiveness and that of our customers." This year, igus is presenting a record number of innovations with 277 new motion plastics products - and is continuing to invest in the research, development and production of new, innovative technical solutions. "In the last five years, we have invested over 350 million euros in Cologne alone - in land, buildings, state-of-the-art machines, software, new products, people and marketing," says Tobias Vogel. The entire igus campus in Cologne, where we produce, test and research, now covers around 218,000 square meters. With the new 20,000 square meter production hall, the test laboratory, the largest in the industry, has also grown to almost 5,500 square meters.

Global investments for even greater customer proximity

"The customer is at the center of all our activities," emphasizes Michael Blass, Managing Director of e-chain systems at igus. "For this reason, we deliberately invest close to our customers." For example, igus is expanding its branch in Shanghai from around 25,000 to 70,000 square meters with a new building. In Bangalore, the production area has even been tripled with a new 16,000 square meter igus campus. In the USA, after injection molding, igus is now also setting up a spindle production facility on site and has opened its own RBTX Customer Test Area for low-cost robotics. As a result, 10 countries now have their own Customer Test Areas so that customers can find their individual low-cost automation solution quickly and easily on site. Three of these locations (USA, China, Brazil) are being expanded into regional hubs so that production and development are also increasingly localized. Investments are also being made in the expansion of subsidiaries in other countries such as Japan, Spain, Taiwan and Poland.

But igus is also clearly focusing on customer proximity in Germany. With the acquisition of elko Verbindungstechnik, for example, the company is building up targeted assembly capacities in southern Germany. elko specializes in assembling cables and connectors into customer-specific systems that are used primarily in machine tools and the automotive industry. At the Cologne site, igus is also continuing to invest in new automation solutions in order to streamline processes and increase throughput times - whether with specially developed and patented crimp towers or through the use of AGVs in the factory buildings.

On the road to CO2 neutrality

igus is currently at 92 percent of the target of being CO2-neutral with its buildings and production by the end of 2025, measured in terms of Scope 1 & 2. "We need to do even better here and are working on numerous sustainability measures - from the new multi-storey parking lot with a complete green façade to the modernization of our existing buildings, for example with photovoltaic systems, to the expansion of our MHRS system for heating with waste machine heat," explains Michael Blass.

However, sustainability must also be an integral part of product innovations. This is why igus is presenting environmentally friendly solutions such as PTFE-free variants of the iglidur standard bearing materials G, X and H at Hannover Messe 2025 - with the same performance at almost the same price. The company is also converting its entire E2.1 series for energy chains to recycled material. This consists of post-consumer recyclate such as old fishing nets and used energy chains, which igus recycles as part of its own "chainge" program. This reduces the CO2 footprint by 80 percent. With the igus Mobile Shore Power Outlet (iMSPO), igus has also developed a mobile "socket" for the shore power supply of container and cruise ships. The system is already being used in ports such as Hamburg, Rotterdam and Singapore and has been nominated for this year's Hermes Award from Deutsche Messe. igus is also driving forward innovative solutions for the dry cleaning room, which is becoming increasingly important in the course of battery production. Together with the Fraunhofer IPA, a new type of certificate has been developed that confirms the cleanroom suitability of igus e-chains in long-term tests. They withstand over 15 million double strokes with minimal and consistent particle emissions.

In times when more and more companies have to make savings, igus is also investing in the development of particularly cost-effective products for its customers. This includes the new glide-chain G4.42 energy chain for simple gliding applications, for example on indoor cranes, with travel distances of up to 30 meters. Thanks to an optimized design, it is not only 12 to 25 percent lighter, but also 30 to 40 percent cheaper than standard chains of the same dimensions from the E2 and E4 range. igus' development work in the field of low-cost automation also demonstrates that there is still plenty of potential for innovation in German industry. The company is currently working on its first humanoid robot made of high-performance plastic. It integrates the ReBeL Cobots as robot arms and uses the mobile robot ReBeL Move as a base. This should allow it to be used flexibly and independently of location at different workstations - with a return on investment of less than one year.