Opportunities

WACKER’s product portfolio outstandingly serves key megatrends. Thanks to our strong international positioning, we see good opportunities to boost our market share in tomorrow’s key growth regions over the coming years. In the medium term, WACKER expects to further boost its sales and profitability. In many business fields, WACKER has a technological edge that it intends to extend.

WACKER’s Product Portfolio Outstandingly Serves Key Megatrends

WACKER’s position enables us to consider and utilize opportunities in all Group areas. Our individual divisions directly act upon opportunities resulting from our operations. Wacker Chemie AG provides the strategic scope and ensures financing and liquidity. The individual plans flow into the Group’s strategic planning process.

Opportunities at All Divisions

Despite the difficult global economic situation, WACKER has opportunities for further growth in many fields. We see key megatrends, from which we will profit in the future.

We serve the energy megatrend with a whole series of products. The largest growth opportunities still stem from our production of polysilicon for the solar industry. Until now, photovoltaics represents just 0.1% of global energy consumption. Finite fossil fuels such as oil and the increasing importance of climate protection will accelerate the use of renewable energy sources. Sinking costs for photovoltaic systems and higher efficiency ratios are making solar electricity increasingly competitive. WACKER POLYSILICON provides the key starting material for this, namely crystalline polysilicon. With its innovative products in areas such as thermal insulation, WACKER POLYMERS makes a major contribution to saving energy and cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. The energy megatrend is also being driven by customers and consumers. Today, awareness of climate change and the environment is growing. This is why demand for environmentally-compatible products is rising. We are convinced that energy will greatly gain in importance in the years to come.

We serve the digitization megatrend by making silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry. The increasing digitization of products and ever greater silicon demand for consumer electronics are driving volume growth. Additionally, this development is fueled by strong Asian growth that would not be possible without digitization and the build-up of infrastructure. The share of 300 mm wafers in the semiconductor industry will show particularly strong growth. Through Siltronic, we profit from this high demand via the establishment and expansion of our 300 mm capacities in Burghausen and Freiberg, as well as in Singapore, where we are establishing a 300 mm wafer fab together with Samsung.

WACKER has numerous products that will be of vital importance for further development in the Asian growth region, as well as in emerging markets around the world. Our strong presence in these markets means we are well prepared to participate in growth there. In almost all sectors, we offer products and solutions that boost the region’s living standards and promote its urbanization, infrastructural expansion, as well as environmental protection. Particularly at our WACKER SILICONES division, we have a diverse product range to boost living standards in emerging markets.

WACKER also has growth opportunities through production-capacity expansion. We invested €826.4 million in 2008 alone. For all our production facilities, meeting the highest productivity demands in a competitive environment is vital. With the help of our “Wacker Operating System” (WOS) program, we see opportunities to further boost productivity. See further details on Employees

WACKER POLYMERS is opening up additional growth opportunities by expanding its supply chains. After acquiring full ownership of Air Products Polymers (APP) and Wacker Polymer Systems (WPS) – former partner companies with Air Products – WACKER is now the only company in the market that can cover the entire dispersion and powder production supply chain for the construction industry in Asia, Europe and the USA.

We also broadened the supply chain at WACKER POLYSILICON. WACKER SCHOTT Solar GmbH, our joint venture with SCHOTT Solar, is building a new solar-wafer production facility in Jena, Germany. By 2012, production capacity will have been extended step by step to 1 gigawatt. The joint venture with SCHOTT Solar boosts our share of value added during solar-cell and solar-system production and is expected to be one of the world’s major solar-wafer manufacturers.

Lower energy and raw material costs, as well as more advantageous exchange-rate and interest-rate trends also offer opportunities for WACKER. Over the past two fiscal years, our business has been primarily impacted by continually rising energy and raw material costs, as well as the strong euro. Lower energy and raw material costs could have a positive effect on earnings.