A single quarter of modest order intake at wind turbine manufacturer Vestas does not worry head of equity research Jacob Pedersen from Sydbank.

”After record orders in the fourth quarter of 2023, it is no surprise that order intake was more subdued in the past quarter. We expect order intake to pick up again over the next few quarters. We also see Vestas approaching the target of an operating margin of 10%+ in 2025, which leaves considerable room for share price increases from here,” he writes in a comment.

On Easter Friday, Vestas announced four more orders with a total capacity of 800 megawatts. Thus, the wind turbine manufacturer reached 11 announced orders totaling 1503 megawatts in the quarter. All were onshore turbine orders.

”In addition, we expect an unannounced order intake of approx. 500 megawatts in the quarter,” writes Jacob Pedersen. Thus, he expects a total onshore wind order intake of approx. 2000 megawatts in the first quarter of 2024.

Despite an uneven order intake in the first quarter, the analyst has high expectations for a solid order development again this year.

”We expect order intake to be high again this year - helped by significant order intake from the US and several offshore wind agreements being converted from preliminary agreements to firm and unconditional orders. The signals from the sector still point to a very favorable activity level in the US and improvement in Europe,” writes Pedersen.

Overall, he expects an order intake this year of approx. 15,000 megawatts in the onshore wind segment and approx. 4,000 megawatts in the offshore wind segment.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Catherine Brett)