2022 brought strong growth to Ahola Special

Despite the difficult market situation, last year was exceptionally positive for Ahola Special. Our turnover grew almost 50%. Wind power projects accounted for a lot of that growth, but there was growth in many other areas, too.

 

A LOT HAS HAPPENED in the energy sector in Finland lately. Thanks to the green transition, efforts are focussed on increasingly ecological forms of energy, which has meant growth, for in – stance, in wind power and in the battery industry. This has also positively affected Ahola Special.

We have been providing wind power transports for two years now. We are continuously increasing our market share in the sector. Last year, a major part of our growth came precisely from wind power transports. Growth also came from the battery industry. We transported a lot of freight to, among others, a battery plant being built in Norway.

The geopolitical situation caused a spike in energy prices and a component shortage, but these were hardly reflected in Special’s operations. Our new vehicles arrived somewhat slow – er than we had hoped, but the vehicle shortage was eased thanks to our acquisition of A&J Kivijärvi last year.

 

New business unit expands service offering

 

Besides our vehicles, last year we also focussed on recruitment and expanding our service offering. Our new business unit Industrial Projects and Engineering supports all our operations and serves our customers in industrial projects and engineering.

We established an office in Jyväskylä that oversees industrial projects, consulting and routing in Europe. The team in Jyväskylä brings to the company solid expertise in European logistics. Thanks to our extensive network, we can offer our customers solutions already in the initial phase of a project and help them find effective ways of transporting.

Thanks to the growth, Ahola Special now has altogether 35 employees.

Investments in digitalisation continued

 

Last year, we also continued our in – vestments in digitalisation. Together with Ahola Digital, we developed entirely new tools tailored to our needs. The 3D scanning tool we designed with Ahola Digital allows us to create very precise and high-quality modelling and simulations of routes and job sites. We have two drones which we use to obtain considerably more detailed data on routes and which save us a lot of time, work and money. There is demand for such services, and they bring our customers significant added value.

Positive outlook also for this year

 

All in all, our operations have enjoyed very good momentum, and we have received a lot of positive feedback on our work. Even though some markets, such as the construction industry, have declined due to the economic situation, the outlook is very positive for this year.

Industrial projects in particular are doing well right now, and a number of large projects are in the pipeline.