SKF's Capital Expenditure Program Should Deliver Longer-Term Working Capital Benefits

SKF is the largest bearings manufacturer globally, with about 20% share of the global bearings market—about twice as much as its nearest rival. In perpetuating its industry-leading position, SKF leverages its expertise and reputation for bringing innovative, energy-efficient, and durable industrial and automotive bearings to market. SKF aims to work in partnership with its original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, customers—which include a highly diverse set of market industrial sectors and market verticals—during their product design process, offering its extensive engineering know-how in friction minimization. Specification of the correct and optimally customized bearing offers SKF’s customers greater energy efficiency and can also help to minimize machine downtime, which are both attractive attributes to users of industrial equipment. In this way, the relationship adds value for SKF’s OEM customers—which account for about 65% of group sales—while also creating demand for its bearings in the third-party distribution channel, where sales result from the need to replace existing SKF bearings and other products that have come to the end of their useful life.