Turnaround: Nordex in The Black
Hamburg, Germany - Hamburg-based wind turbine manufacturer Nordex has reached operating break-even in the 2023 financial year. Nordex is optimistic about 2024 and expects a further increase in sales and earnings.
Nordex annual results 2023: Sales increase by 14 percent - earnings reach break-even point
Nordex has announced its annual results for 2023 and confirmed the preliminary figures. Group sales increased by 14 percent to EUR 6.5 billion (2022: EUR 5.7 billion). Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) reached the operating break-even point at EUR 2.0 million (2022: EUR -244.3 million). This corresponds to a margin of zero percent (2022: -4.3 percent). As a result, sales in 2023 exceeded the upper end of the forecast corridor, while the EBITDA margin reached around the middle of the expected range, Nordex announced.
Operational development in 2023: 40 percent increase in installed wind power capacity
In the year under review, the Nordex Group installed a total of 1,429 wind turbines in 24 countries (2022: 1,129 in 19 countries) with a total rated capacity of almost 7.3 GW (2022: 5.2 GW). This is an increase of more than 40 percent.
In addition to the Projects segment, the Service segment also contributed to growth. At the end of 2023, the Nordex Group had 11,400 wind turbines with a capacity of 35 GW under service, mostly under long-term contracts (2022: 10,599 wind turbines, 31 GW capacity).
The order backlog in the Service segment increased by 11.4 percent to EUR 3.6 billion in 2023 (2022: EUR 3.3 billion) and in the Projects segment by 5.8 percent to EUR 6.9 billion (2022: EUR 6.5 billion). In total, this results in an order backlog of around EUR 10.5 billion after EUR 9.8 billion in the previous year. At 1.07, the book-to-bill ratio was both above 1.0 and above the previous year's figure (2022: 1.04).
Outlook for 2024: further increase in operating profit
For 2024, the Nordex Group expects consolidated sales of EUR 7.0 to 7.7 billion and an EBITDA margin of 2.0 to 4.0 percent. The company expects the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half.
"After a challenging 2022, we managed to stabilize our operations during 2023 as the overall market conditions improved, despite some fluctuations. We have further strengthened our balance sheet this year, achieved good order intake and successively increased our profitability. This puts us in a solid starting position for 2024 and beyond. It remains important for us that the political framework conditions and supply chains remain reliable in the long term so that we can efficiently process our order backlog," says José Luis Blanco, CEO of the Nordex Group.
Source: IWR Online, Feb 02 2024