In the first three quarters of the 2003/2004 business year (April 1, to December 31, 2003), the voestalpine Group continued its successful development and reported a further increase in sales and result compared to the previous year. Also all other key figures were improved - partly significantly - as against the equal period of the 2002/2003 business year. The development in detail is as follows:

Sales rose by 7.2% from EUR 3,172.0 million to EUR 3,401.5 million.
The EBITDA (earnings before depreciation and amortization) improved by 12.9% from EUR 368.7 million to EUR 416.2 million. The EBITDA margin comes to 12.2% compared to 11.6% in the previous year.
EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) increased from EUR 155.4 million to EUR 196.3 million. This corresponds to an increase of 26.3%. The EBIT margin rose from 4.9% to 5.8%.
EBT (result from ordinary activities) is EUR 171.6 million, thus increasing by 162.8% compared with EUR 65.3 million in the previous year.
The net income for the period nearly trebled from EUR 36.0 million to EUR 106.8 million.
The earnings per share are EUR 2.71 in comparison to EUR 0.9 in the same period of the previous year.

 12 February 2004