Sales at the German press manufacturer rose 11.9% to €213.4m (£174.5m), while order intake grew 20.8% to €241.5m in the three months to 31 March.

Gross margin increased to 25.4% (2013: 21.3%) and KBA cut its operating loss from €16.9m to €10.2m. The group said it expected to post an operating profit before exceptionals for the full year.

Sheetfed sales were up 20.9% to €118.7m, while web offset and special press sales rose 2.4% to €94.7m.

KBA said some orders for special security presses had been postponed during the period, while demand for web offset kit remained “subdued”. 

While the sheetfed division reversed last year's near €6m operating loss to post a €1.2m operating profit, web and special presses made a loss of €11.4m due to postponed orders and under utilisation of its web offset manufacturing facilities. 

The group is in the middle of a major restructuring programme, Fit@All, to realign its business to the “fundamentally changed press market environment”.  KBA said its restructuring activities were on schedule. Some 700 employees are already set to leave the business either via redundancy or earlier retirement, out of a planned headcount reduction of up to 1,500 positions by the end of next year.

Most of the costs associated with this project were included in its 2013 results, where KBA posted a one-off charge of €155.2m for the programme.

KBA had 6,237 (2013: 6,187) employees on its payroll at the end of the first quarter, including employees that joined the group because of the integration of specialist screen printing operation KBA-Kammann, which produces kit for printing onto glass containers, and flexible packaging press supplier KBA-Flexotecnica.

Excluding those staff, trainees and apprentices, and other employees on phased retirement plans, the workforce was reduced to 5,307 and the company said it would soon fall below 5,000.

In his outlook statement chief executive Claus Bolza-Schunemann said the group’s product mix to change as digital, packaging and special presses made a more significant contribution to future sales.

He pinpointed the USA and Eurozone as “taking on a greater role in terms of growth”, and also warned of risks to the global economy due to the crisis in Ukraine. Bolza-Schunemann said the strong euro put KBA and other German press manufacturers at a disadvantage compared with competitors from outside the EU.