Bosch UK and Ireland posts sales of £3.3 billion despite challenging market conditions
- Consumer Goods and Mobility Aftermarket increase sales
- Bosch enters strategic new markets in the UK: MedTech and Secure Truck Parking
- Managing Director Steffen Hoffmann: “We have demonstrated remarkable resilience”
Denham, May 2025 – Bosch, a leading global supplier of technology and services, concluded its 2024 fiscal year with £3.3 billion (3.8 billion euros) in consolidated sales in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Mobility Aftermarket division has made a significant contribution to this outcome, demonstrating steady growth in the UK and Ireland in recent years, a trend that has continued throughout 2024.
Furthermore, Bosch has also entered the UK’s medical technology market via its ITK Engineering division and introduced its Secure Truck Parking business to the region.
Business and market developments
Recent legislation from the UK Government has given the company a more positive perspective on future business. The revised sales targets within the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate provide much-needed clarity to the UK’s broad automotive sector. In addition, Bosch calls on the UK Government to go further in its support for the industry by recognising hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines as being low emission, which would encourage investment in this technology that could have a powerful impact on reducing emissions from heavy duty vehicles such as lorries and off-highway vehicles such as bulldozers.
A significant event in 2024 was the Government’s progress in improving aspects of the country’s relationship with Europe. Bosch believes any future discussions need to be ambitious because businesses of all sizes would benefit from a closer relationship with the EU, particularly when it comes to trade and regulations. The company welcomes Labour devoting significant time to this important topic.
In the UK and Ireland, Bosch associates are involved in research and development, manufacturing and sales. The region is an important centre of innovation for the Bosch Group. As of December 31st, 2024, the company employs more than 6,300 associates here and the region is Bosch’s fourth largest in terms of sales outside of its home country of Germany, China and the USA.
2024 in review: Challenges and opportunities
Steffen Hoffmann, managing director of Bosch UK and Ireland, said: “We continue to face challenging global economic conditions. Despite that, our Mobility Aftermarket continued to grow, and a strong consumer market for gardening products ensured our Consumer Goods division saw modest growth. Our building technologies and service solutions businesses developed positively too.”
Hoffmann continued: “Stable and effective regulations are of vital importance. We welcome the Government’s recent revisions to the ZEV mandate which provide a much better framework for the UK’s automotive market. There is further potential for the UK to reach its net zero ambitions, particularly around the opportunities that hydrogen presents.” Discussing the performance of Bosch’s business sectors, Hoffmann added: “Consumer confidence is not where we would want it to be, making this a particularly trying time for businesses around the world. However, Bosch's resilience due to its broad positioning across markets and sectors has helped us during past challenges and in 2024, we have again upheld our strong position here in the UK and Ireland as Bosch’s second largest market in Europe. It’s built on a talented workforce and a highly skilled supplier network, and together we will continue to seek new opportunities for us to grow and develop. The transformation of our energy, automotive and building technology sectors creates challenges, but also offers significant opportunities for Bosch.”
In detail: Performance of Bosch business sectors in the UK and Ireland
Bosch’s largest sector in the UK and Ireland is Bosch Mobility. Within this, the Mobility Aftermarket division continued the growth it has demonstrated consistently for almost a decade. Predominantly focused on car parts and servicing, Mobility Aftermarket benefits from people keeping their cars for longer. In addition, the Mobility Aftermarket team plays a pivotal role in training mechanics across the country to work on electric cars as well as those powered by internal combustion engines.
While the Industrial Technology business sector was in line with the development of the market, the Consumer Goods sector posted increased sales figures compared to the previous year, as did our BSH home appliances division.
The Energy and Building Technology sector had some notable successes, especially with further uptake of heat pumps, although a fall in the overall boiler market for a second consecutive year meant the Home Comfort division had to contend with some headwind.
Into 2025: Outlook and opportunities
For the current business year, Bosch expects only moderate global economic growth of 2 to 2.5 percent and estimates that the global economy won’t start picking up momentum until 2026. “It is safe to assume that it will be another challenging year in the UK and Ireland,” added Hoffmann. “I would expect the positive development for our Consumer Goods divisions to continue with the business climate generally picking up slightly towards the second half of the year. It’s crucial that we focus on the positives and seize growth opportunities across the region. And there are many opportunities. We continue to deploy artificial intelligence where it can have an impact. Hydrogen can decarbonise industries and boost our energy security; this prospect is being increasingly recognised across the UK, and it should include heating as well as road traffic.”
ITK Engineering launches in UK
ITK Engineering, a global tech company and subsidiary of Robert Bosch, specialises in customised and cross-domain software and systems engineering. The division launched in the UK in 2024. The country has a thriving MedTech sector, with over 3,400 companies driving advancements in areas like AI-powered diagnostics, wearable medical devices, and robot-assisted surgery. ITK Engineering’s entry into this market will provide these innovators with high-quality engineering support for regulatory-compliant medical device development, embedded software and systems, robotics, AI-assisted engineering, cloud computing, and cyber security. This support can help accelerate product development while ensuring regulatory compliance.
Secure Truck Parking rolls-out to UK
Bosch’s industry-leading Secure Truck Parking platform is designed to facilitate the access to high-security parking spaces at truck stops across the country. It launched in the UK in 2024. Evidence and data continue to highlight the pressing need to tackle the issue of secure parking. The first location to benefit from the platform is the award-winning Red Lion truck stop in Northampton. Bosch’s systems allow the team at the Red Lion to use one central booking system, which works across multiple platforms, including phone and Facebook, updated in real-time to ensure drivers are guaranteed a secure parking spot. The system also provides the security team with accurate data on arrival and departure times. Further expansion of the platform is planned.
Bosch Group: outlook for 2025 and strategic direction
The Bosch Group is continuing with its ambitious Strategy 2030 to strengthen its competitive position, even though the market environment was a significant brake on growth last year: at 90.3 billion euros, the supplier of technology and services generated 1.4 percent less sales revenue in 2024 than in the previous year, or 0.5 percent less after adjusting for exchange-rate effects. The EBIT margin from operations was 3.5 percent.
“In the 2024 fiscal year, we achieved important improvements in terms of costs, structures, and portfolio,” said Stefan Hartung, chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH. With a normal inflation rate of between 2 and 3 percent, Bosch aims to achieve annual growth of between 6 and 8 percent on average until 2030. In the first quarter of the year, Bosch increased its sales revenue by 4 percent compared to the previous year. The Bosch Group is still aiming for a target margin of 7 percent in 2026, viewing this as an extremely challenging task given current challenges. To remain successful amid changing markets and technologies, Bosch will continue to work intensively on costs and structures and focus on profitable business areas. “As a global technology leader, we are fully committed to boldly playing to our strengths, such as our high level of innovativeness,” Hartung said.
The company also sees its collaboration with startups as a major stimulus for growth. As one of Europe’s biggest corporate venture-capital investors, the Bosch Group announced a new fund for venture capital: the subsidiary Bosch Ventures is providing around 250 million euros. Bosch expects developments in its core Mobility business sector, particularly in electromobility, hydrogen, and software-defined vehicles, to be a major stimulus for growth. In the Consumer Goods sector, Bosch sees significant growth opportunities arising from new customer requirements. The focus for power tools is on expanding the range of cordless devices, and BSH Hausgeräte is launching a fridge-freezer this year that is the first Matter-capable home appliance on the market. In its Industrial Technology business, Bosch expects order intake to stabilise and is still pursuing the goal of achieving sales revenue of around 1 billion euros by the beginning of the next decade with software and digital services such as the Hydraulic Hub. Additionally, factory automation is set to focus on growth areas such as battery, semiconductor, and consumer goods production. In the Energy and Building Technology sector, Bosch expects the planned acquisition of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) business of Johnson Controls and Hitachi to deliver significant growth. Despite all the global turbulence, climate action remains a core concern for Bosch. The company is underlining this with new scope 3 targets, which aim to bring down carbon emissions outside Bosch’s direct sphere of influence, such as those from product use, even further by 2030. Irrespective of its growth targets, Bosch wants to double its corresponding CO2 reduction target by then from 15 to 30 percent compared to 2018. “Climate change won’t disappear just because the global economy currently has other challenges to deal with,” Hartung cautions. “Sustainability remains a priority for Bosch.”
Contact person for media enquiries:
James Bolton
Email: james.bolton@uk.bosch.com
The Bosch Group established its first location outside its home market of Germany in London, England in 1898. Since then, Bosch UK & Ireland has become the company’s fourth largest region, behind Germany, China and the USA. As of December 31, 2024, the company employs more than 6,300 associates in 30 locations across the UK and Ireland, including design and manufacturing facilities at Worcester Bosch in England and Bosch Rexroth in Scotland. Bosch also has an advanced automotive research and development centre in Limerick, Ireland. ETAS Limited’s office in York, England hosts the ETAS Group Centre of Excellence for Embedded Software Development.