HEIDELBERG GERMANY—  HEIDELBERG closed the past year with a high order intake. At over € 600 million, incoming orders in the fourth quarter were up on the previous quarters of the previous year. The basis for this is also the global and diversified positioning of the company, which allows HEIDELBERG to benefit from the different growth dynamics in the individual regions. The significant increase in incoming orders in the EMEA region in the fourth quarter deserves special mention, while the Americas region showed a slight improvement at a still subdued level. After several previous quarters of strong growth, the Asia/Pacific region was below the previous year's level, mainly to the reluctance to invest ahead of the China Print trade fair. Both segments in the core business achieved an increase in orders thanks to strong development in the Sheetfed product area, with the Packaging Solutions segment accounting for the higher growth. Preliminary order intake for the year as a whole therefore totaled around € 2.430 billion, which was around 6 percent higher than the previous year's figure of € 2.288 billion. Overall, the improvement can be seen across both segments, with Packaging Solutions accounting for around 52 percent of order intake for the year as a whole. Compared to the previous year, order intake in this strategically important segment recorded absolute growth of around 7 percent.