Press maker Koenig & Bauer has announced it turned more than a billion Euros in revenue last year.

Ahead of full results, it has indicated "slight organic revenue growth" and a balanced EBIT is expected in 2021.

Preliminary and as yet unaudited figures show group revenue of 1,029 million Euros (A$1.58 billion), and an EBIT loss of 68 million Euros in the 2020 financial year, adjusted for special items to 19 million.

"This means that group revenue is significantly above the forecast issued for the 2020 financial year," the company says. Adjustment to the group's internal revenue recognition policy is given as the reason for the higher revenue and the corresponding effect on EBIT.

Says chief financial officer Stephen Kimmich, "We expect to reduce volatility in revenue recognition of our new printing press business with the new accounting policy.

"This should also permit more balanced budgeting in the future. The retrospective adjustment gives us improved transparency and comparability with previous years."

As a result of the adjustments, group revenue increased by around 51 million Euros net, with the impact of the change as below:

Koenig & Bauer says preliminary figures show a full-year order intake of around 975 million Euros in the 2020 financial year, 14.5 per cent lower than in 2019.

The 'P24' programme announced at the end of September aims at increasing annual cost savings of more than 100 million Euros by 2024, while "continuing and accelerating" all innovation processes as well as new process and product developments.

The current focus is on the staff layoffs, which will affect 700-900 jobs in 2021, with "a good 60 per cent" of total cost savings to take effect in 2022. "P24x is our road back to the planned group growth in the medium term," says Andreas Pleßke, spokesman for Koenig & Bauer's management board.

"We are focusing on packaging and a portfolio strategy in attractive markets, on strong research and development, on synergistic effects in production and on the further development of our service business to improve our customers' total cost of ownership."

Koenig & Bauer will be publishing its audited financial statements and annual report for 2020 on March 24.