OUR
Company
The world's leading system provider for fire protection
Rosenbauer is a leading global provider of system solutions for preventive firefighting and disaster protection technology. As an international Group, Rosenbauer develops, produces, and sells a comprehensive portfolio of vehicles, fire extinguishing systems, equipment, and digital solutions for professional, industrial, plant, and volunteer fire services. In addition, Rosenbauer offers stationary equipment for preventive fire protection.
Rosenbauer International AG based in Leonding, Austria, is the listed parent company of the Group. It is also home to the company’s largest production location and houses the research and development center, as well as Group management.
In 2024, the Rosenbauer Group generated revenues of €1,305.9 million (2023: €1,064.5 million). The breakdown of sales by product group was as follows: 75% vehicles, 9% equipment, 9% customer service, 3% preventive fire protection, and 4% other revenues.
With a global market share of around 11%, Rosenbauer is a leading global manufacturer of firefighting vehicles and sets benchmarks in the industry.
Unique, global network
The Rosenbauer Group operates 15 production locations in eight countries on four continents. This geographical diversification allows the company to produce vehicles and fire extinguishing systems in accordance with the main international standards. Rosenbauer uses this global manufacturing network not only for vehicle production but also for manufacturing high-quality fire extinguishing systems and equipment, which ensures consistently high product quality and better responsiveness to regional requirements.
The Group also has its own sales and servicing companies in 19 countries and cooperates with around 160 independent trading partners worldwide. Overall, Rosenbauer is represented in around 110 countries and therefore has an international network that is unique in the firefighting industry.
Number one worldwide for innovations
Rosenbauer is regarded as an innovation leader in the firefighting industry. With its technologically advanced products, the Group has been setting benchmarks for decades and is continually developing the standards in the industry. Particular focus is placed on e-mobility, digitalization, and sustainable solutions for preventive fire protection. Research and development (R&D) has a correspondingly high priority.
The company’s own innovation process integrates the most important megatrends, current market insights, customer requirements, and employee suggestions. This systematic approach allows Rosenbauer to make technological leaps and to develop solutions that meet the operational needs of the emergency services.
At the end of 2024, the Group held around 176 patents and patent applications as well as numerous design patents, utility models, and trademark rights.
Corporate Strategy
With the “Rosenbauer City 2030” strategy, Rosenbauer is pursuing an ambitious growth and innovation strategy based on three strategic pillars: Innovation and technology leadership, operational excellence, and proximity to customers. The aim is to expand its position as a leading systems provider on the global market through profitable growth. The target is consolidated revenues of €2 billion, a sustainable EBIT margin of 7%, and a ROCE of 14%.
- To implement this long-term strategy, nine strategic action areas have been defined. Management has prioritized the following aspects over the past two years:
- Best value for money: Rosenbauer sees itself as an innovation leader in the firefighting industry and wants to define the state of the art with its products. As a contractor to mainly public customers, the Rosenbauer developers always keep manufacturing costs in mind. Rosenbauer’s products not only meet the highest safety and quality standards, they also offer the best value for money.
- Operational excellence: Rosenbauer is increasingly focusing on pre-configured products and scalable solutions. The main value creation process is being optimized from the submission of the quotation to the handover of the vehicles in order to increase efficiency and shorten throughput times.
- Expansion of non-vehicle business: management is stepping up customer service, equipment, and the components business. These product segments are less capital intensive and deliver attractive earnings contributions. Their comparatively shorter turnaround times make it possible to be close to and more frequently in contact with the customer.
- Electric vehicles: Rosenbauer uses alternative drive technologies and already offers an electric model in every vehicle category. In particular, the combination of electromobility and the company’s own chassis opens up new possibilities in vehicle architecture, which is superior when applied to commercial electric trucks in the firefighting field.
- Expansion in the US market: Rosenbauer regards the US as an extension of its domestic market and manufactures products for American fire departments at three locations in the US. Uniform standards throughout the country make the United States the largest homogeneous firefighting market in the world. The acquisition of minority interests in local Group companies in 2022 created the conditions for leveraging synergies and making the best possible use of future market opportunities.
- Sustainability is another important pillar. Rosenbauer develops environmentally friendly vehicles and pursues a sustainable production strategy with reduced CO2 emissions and resource-efficient processes.
Research and Development
In 2024, the Group spent €32.9 million (2023: €27.8 million) on research and development. This corresponds to 2.5% of the Group revenues (2023: 2.6%). The capitalization rate was 17.1% (2023: 21.9%) and related to developments in Austria and Germany. 60% (2023: 58%) of development costs totaling €19.9 million (2023: €16.3 million) was incurred by Rosenbauer International AG, the Group-wide center of expertise for municipal and specialty vehicles, firefighting systems, and fire and safety equipment.
In 2024, research and development activities were focused on the systematic electrification and further development of the existing product range, and on identifying strategic topics for the future in order to derive specific areas of action for Rosenbauer.
In 2024, Rosenbauer continued along the consistent path of developing sustainable emergency vehicles and, following the series launch of the first fully electric municipal firefighting vehicle – the Revolutionary Technology (RT) – in 2024, developed the pre-production version of the first fully electric PANTHER ARFF vehicle. Sales for interested airport fire department customers worldwide began in October 2024. In the currently ongoing series development of the PANTHER electric, Rosenbauer is expanding its own expertise in developing innovative and sustainable drive solutions by developing the electric drive system created for the PANTHER electric under its own responsibility together with renowned partners including Magna and Miba Battery Systems.
In 2024, Rosenbauer and Miba Battery Systems agreed on a long-term partnership to develop high-performance battery solutions for specialty electric vehicles. The innovative battery technology developed by Miba reduces vehicle weight, allowing faster acceleration and thus a more efficient response time in an emergency in the PANTHER electric. This collaboration gives a strong signal for electromobility from Austria.
The initial experiences of customers of the electrically driven municipal firefighting vehicle RT are already feeding into the development of these new drive technologies. These are being discussed with Rosenbauer in various user groups in order to make even better use of the technology’s potential for application by fire departments and to share experiences from actual use of the vehicles. In two user groups, one for the DACH region and another worldwide international group, RT users provide feedback on how the technology is proving itself in actual use. These insights are continually taken into account in the development of new products with alternative drives at Rosenbauer and, at the same time, provide an important basis for future developments.
Rosenbauer sees great potential in the increasing digitalization of its products to provide the emergency services with even more security while at the same time making product operation even more intuitive and efficient. The development of modern driver assistance systems (such as the emergency brake assistant or the turning assistant) is just one example of what Rosenbauer’s Development department was dealing with in 2024. We are also working on developing robotics with the future aim of equipping the series-produced robot RTE Robot with digitalized solutions for optimizing operation in use.
The presentation of the new FOX portable fire pump from Rosenbauer – which has a delivery rate of over 2,000 l/min at 10 bar and meets the PFPN 10-2000 standard for the first time – at the international FLORIAN trade fair for fire departments in Dresden in October 2024 marked the end of one of the most important development projects in the extinguishing systems product segment in the 2024 reporting year. The new model is based on the proven FOX portable fire pump and delivers even greater performance, thus remaining the absolute benchmark in its class in terms of weight, user-friendliness, and equipment options. The FOX from Rosenbauer is still the most successful portable pump according to EN 14466 and has proven itself in the toughest firefighting operations in the world.
In the 2024 reporting year, the Development unit at Rosenbauer also carried out a campaign – across the entire product range – to analyze the value of existing products with the aim of reducing manufacturing costs and thus making a significant contribution to improving earnings. In 2024, almost 500 individual measures were implemented to reduce manufacturing costs for the Group’s most important products.
The fire department trend map (FTM) has established itself as a working tool for many fire departments and disaster response organizations. In 2024, Rosenbauer published further workshop formats for the more efficient use of the FTM and supported workshops. The basic research on trends, changes, and technologies is used to prepare the next version of the trend map. The FTM 6.0 is expected to be published at the beginning of 2026 with even more implementation tools and connectivity with the Sustainability Loop Action Map (SLAM).
Sustainability, habitat protection, and economic stability will be key to stabilizing the climate and society in the years to come. The basic work and preliminary research conducted in the 2024 reporting year, which focuses on limited raw material and circular flow models, not only aims to raise awareness but also provides specific recommendations for action for all divisions, customers, partners, and employees.
In order to make the operational idea-to-product process clearer and more efficient, the innovation process was harmonized with the product development process, and a clear requirement process was established. Technologically, research also focused on broadening the company’s expertise in lightweight construction for resource-saving product design. More detail was added to the Wildfire Whitepaper in application-oriented research. This has made it possible to expand the knowledge base for wildfires. A calculation model for determining theoretical fire output and the calculation of extinguishing agent requirements was developed in combination with other analyses of the physics of fire.