Danish wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH:VWS) today reported a stable revenue and improved earnings for the second quarter (Q2) compared to a year earlier but revised down its projections for the full year.
The company posted a Q2 revenue of EUR 3.54 billion (USD 4.15bn), in line with the year-ago top line, and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) before special items of EUR 101 million, up by EUR 67 million. The EBIT margin improved by 1.9 percentage points to 2.9%.
“This increase was primarily driven by underlying improved operations and execution, but hampered by the continued cost inflation impacting global industrials. In this environment, our Service business and wind turbine order intake grew 23% and 28% respectively year-over-year, which resulted in an all-time high order backlog of more than EUR 48 billion,” said Henrik Andersen, Group President & CEO. He described the period as commercially very strong in view of the combination of the aforementioned factors with an average selling price of EUR 0.79 per MW for onshore, new offshore orders and the company’s first preferred supplier agreement for the V236-15.0 MW model.
The table below gives more information about the company’s financial performance in April-June and the first half of 2021.
| Results in EUR million |
Q2 2021 |
Q2 2020 |
H1 2021 |
H1 2020 |
| Revenue |
3,536 |
3,541 |
5,498 |
5,776 |
| EBITDA before special items |
321 |
188 |
457 |
285 |
| EBIT before special items (loss) |
101 |
34 |
30 |
(20) |
| EBITDA |
321 |
183 |
457 |
270 |
| EBIT |
101 |
34 |
30 |
(78) |
| Profit for the period |
90 |
(5) |
33 |
(85) |
| Free cash flow |
166 |
96 |
(924) |
(823) |
Vestas’ quarterly intake of firm and unconditional wind turbine orders amounted to 5,290 MW and, as at June 30, the value of its wind turbine order backlog was EUR 21.2 billion. The company also had service agreements with expected contractual future revenue of EUR 26.9 billion on the same date.
As per Vestas’ full-year guidance, the company is revising it down to reflect the current environment characterised by supply chain constraints, cost inflation and restrictions in key markets caused by the pandemic. It now expects a 2021 revenue of between EUR 15.5 billion and EUR 16.5 billion rather than EUR 16 billion-17 billion, including Service. The overall EBIT margin before special items is seen at 5-7% instead of 6-8%. Total investments, previously expected to amount to EUR 1 billion, are now projected below that figure.
(EUR 1 = USD 1.172)
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Source: Twitter, @Vestas
