Orona rises its position in a challenging year, reaching a turnover of 799 M€

Orona, the fifth European group in people mobility solutions held its Annual Members' Meeting today at its Ideo headquarters. During the meeting, which was held digitally with streaming, the 2020 accounts were approved and the projects in which it is immersed within the framework of its 2019-2022 strategic plan were reviewed.

Orona's figures on 2020

The company's sales figure reached 799 million euros, maintaining the result of the previous year, all in a complex scenario marked by the economic and health crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, Orona achieved an EBITDA of 138 million euros. Moreover, investments this year amounted to 16.3 million euros. In terms of the number of employees, Orona ended the year employing a total of 5,471 people, a figure which, despite the crisis, has increased compared to the previous year.

Xavier Mutuberría, the group's CEO, assures that "the results we are presenting today are very positive, as we have managed to maintain recruitment and turnover in a year as exceptional as 2020, marked by the Covid-19 crisis and the global economic slowdown, has been an achievement, thanks to the effort and commitment of the entire team". Furthermore, he adds, "At Orona we have been able to adapt and respond to the new needs of customers and end users, and this has been reflected in new contracts and social initiatives that have allowed us to develop our cooperative experience to the full". 

Orona consolidates its international presence and focuses on digitalization

The 2020 financial year was also one of consolidation for Orona in Europe. After the two incorporations of companies in Malta and Portugal, the vertical lifting company now has 12 countries in which it has a comprehensive presence as a player in the entire value chain. These additions are part of the Orona 2030 plan, the year established as a target by the company to become a European benchmark in the lifting sector, with the aim of reaching a turnover of 1,200 million euros and more than 7,800 people in its organization.

Moreover, and as part of its digital transformation strategy, Orona has focused on service to customers and users of its solutions, as well as the efficiency of its value chain operations as a competitive lever. In this line, the agreement reached with Amazon Web Services (AWS) was presented, thanks to which Orona will have the Cloud Computing service, a platform of Information Technology (IT) infrastructure services that will facilitate its growth and scalability in the short term and position the company at the forefront of digitization through relevant innovation at the service of people.

Socio-business commitment

The Annual Members' Meeting also highlighted the co-operative's work and socio-business commitment, with the company continuing to provide its maintenance and assistance services over the past year despite the difficult times in Spain and Europe, reaffirming its position as an essential service.

All of this reaffirms its brand purpose of bringing people closer by shortening distances, attending to thousands of calls for assistance and going on site to the more than 250,000 installations that the company looks after.

In its social aspect, Orona Foundation has also developed outstanding social initiatives such as the Jakioro food project which, in collaboration with the Basque Country Government, made it possible to boost the primary sector, distributing more than 222,000 food rations during the worst months of the pandemic, or the Osasun Leku Project, in collaboration with the Chillida Leku Museum.

Through this collaboration, a programme was created to reduce the stress of health workers by means of an exercise book inspired by sculptures from the museum itself, all thanks to Orona's co-operative funds.

This year has also been particularly significant for the company in terms of environmental commitment, achieving its carbon footprint, obtaining EPDs (environmental product declaration) for its range of products and has embarked on its own path towards a circular economy through the corporate environmental footprint methodology and the recent ratification of the Basque Green Deal with IHOBE (Basque Government).

Flagship projects, new challenges for Orona

The year closed with important projects that represent new technical and strategic challenges for the company. Of particular note in this respect was the winning of the tender for the Donostia Metro, a complex engineering project that will link the Amara district with the center and other districts of San Sebastian (Spain), where Orona will deliver 14 state-of-the-art connected lifts and 26 escalators.

Orona was also awarded the contract to supply 40 lifts to the Brussels Metro, where Orona has been present since 2010. The Brussels Metro is the most used mode of public transport in the European capital with a capacity of 163 million passengers per year, with 69 stations and more than 55 kilometers of route. All Orona lifts installed have therefore been designed to meet the most demanding criteria for traffic and use, guaranteeing the comfort and safety of their users, as well as universal accessibility for all those who use the installation. At present, Orona maintains 190 units in the metropolitan area of the European capital. The Orona Group has a team of 300 people in Belgium.

About Orona

Orona is a leading European vertical lift business group. It delivers value for its customers through its platform of products and services covering the design, manufacture, installation, maintenance, modernization, rehabilitation and replacement of lifts and escalators for all market segments.

Its vertical transport solutions encompass innovative, pragmatic and relevant state-of-the-art techniques that are applied in the areas of people mobility management, space optimization, user experience and lift safety. The organization's commitment to environmental sustainability made Orona the first elevator company in the world to obtain ISO 14006 eco-design certification, and its corporate headquarters the first to be rated as an extraordinary point of innovation in Spain by BREEAM International.

Orona's organizational model is committed to people. Its team of 5,400 professionals, present in 12 European countries, operates throughout the entire value chain of the elevation sector. Its production facilities have the largest production capacity for complete lifts in Europe, with a fleet of 250,000 lifts installed. 1 out of every 10 new lifts in Europe are Orona lifts.

Thanks to its extensive network of qualified distributors, Orona is present in more than 100 countries around the world. At the end of 2019, it achieved a turnover of 799 million euros.