Claas Balers Turn 30
Claas built its first variable chamber round baler - the Variant 100 - in 1996, so 2026 marks 30 years and the fifth generation of the Variant name, recently complemented by the new Cerex Series introduced in 2025.
As an example, Austrian company Pöttinger is signaling that it will have its best year ever, expecting to end its 2020/21 financial year with a €395m turnover (NZ$673m). This is a significant increase on the €366m of 2019/2020 and beats the previous best ever figure of €382m in 2018/2019.
Speaking at a virtual press launch of the new Jumbo 7000 series forage wagons, spokesman Gregor Dietachmayr, confirmed Pöttinger is very busy, with substantial order books, after a difficult 16-month period brought about by the pandemic.
“We had to be careful, even reducing our manufacturing output slightly to reduce the risk of creating too-high machine inventories, should the demand have shrunk,” said Dietachmayr. “We were surprised to find the demand for new machines actually increased.”
While the domestic market of Austria accounts for 10% of sales, exports of the remaining 90% sees Germany and France as the largest markets at 19% and 15% respectively. The product mix is built around grassland machinery at 46% of volume, tillage gear at 16%, balers and loader wagons at 15%, with drills making up 9% of the total.
During the year, the company opened its 17th sales subsidiary in Poland; a strategy started in France in 1999 that was followed by Switzerland (2003), Italy (2004), Canada (2005), Ukraine (2007), Australia, Slovakia and USA (2008), Russia (2010), the UK, Belgium and Ireland (2012) and Scandinavia and China (2016).
