Siemens has announced its latest financial results. In the second quarter of this fiscal year, which ended on March 31, new orders were down 13% year-over-year to 17.9 billion euros. The decline was due primarily to lower volume from large orders compared to the prior-year period, Siemens says.
According to the company, income was considerably below that from the prior year due to burdens in the company's Power Transmission division and an equity investment loss at NSN.
Revenue came in at 19.3 billion euros, representing a 9% increase. The book-to-bill ratio for the quarter was 0.93, and the order backlog totaled 100 billion euros.
For Siemens' Energy Sector, new orders were down by nearly one-third to 5.8 billion euros, while revenue rose 13%, to 6.9 billion euros. The decline in new orders was due primarily to a lower volume of large orders compared to the prior-year period, which had included orders for a combined cycle power plant in Saudi Arabia and three offshore wind farms in Germany, Siemens explains.
The largest increase in revenue was achieved by the renewable energy business. For the full fiscal year, the company's Energy Sector unit expects a book- to-bill ratio above one.
‘As expected, the second quarter was not easy," says Siemens President and CEO Peter Loscher. "While we achieved clear growth in revenue, orders came in below the prior year due to lower volume from large orders. For fiscal 2012, we're on course to achieve our goals for revenue and orders. Profit for the quarter was below our expectation due to charges at power transmission projects in Germany."
For fiscal year 2012, Siemens expects moderate organic revenue growth compared to fiscal 2011, and for orders to exceed revenues. Challenges, mostly in Siemens' power transmission business, impact the level of income from continuing operations that the company originally expected to achieve in fiscal 2012 – 6.0 billion euros – by an estimated 600 million euros to 800 million euros.
