The German press manufacturer posted a Q1 pre-tax loss of €21.3m (£18.3m) – an improvement on a €35.2m loss for the same period in 2009 - following a 13.5% drop in sales at its web and special press division, to €124m.

However, new orders were up 43.2% year-on-year to €314.4m, which help propel the group's order backlog to €439.6m, up more than €100m compared to €335m at the end of last year.

Group sales remained sluggish, falling 4.7% year-on-year to €209.8m, although sheetfed sales growth of 11.7%, to €85.8m, helped offset the fall in web/special presses sales.

Despite cost-cutting measures contributing to a significant improvement in KBA's gross profit margin, which climbed to more than 21% from just 13% a year earlier, the weak quarterly sales performance meant that the company posted an operating loss €19.4m and cashflow from operating activity stood at -€41.3m, compared with €19.2m in Q1 2009.

Yet, while cash levels dropped and bank loans rose, KBA's net debt of €16.7m remained within its long-term credit facilities.

The company is continuing to restructure its business to better cope with the impact of the recession and its current staff count of just more than 6,500 is 1,000 fewer than a year ago and is expected to fall to 6,000.

Regionally, sales in Europe were slowed by poor performing southern and eastern countries, taking the region's proportion of overall sales to a historic low of 27.9%. The US performed relatively well, contributing 15% of sales, while a more buoyant market in China boosted Asia and Pacific to €58.1m from €36.8m, accounting for 27.7% of sales.

UK managing director Christian Knapp said sales in the UK "had not been particularly good in this quarter".

"Pulling in new orders has been difficult," he added, claiming that he suspected potential customers were waiting for Ipex to invest.

"There seems to be a recovery on the way," he said. "Better figures from the US give me confidence for the UK. Traditionally, the UK follows the US.

"What we're seeing here is that more printers are full now, so I think Ipex will be good to us. The timing at Ipex is particularly opportune and the political stability will help, so I'm optimistic."

Certainly, one highlight at Ipex for KBA will be its announcement on Northern and Shell's planned investment in new KBA presses.