German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex has had a somewhat better start to 2024 than expected, and the company is maintaining its full-year forecast.

”Overall, we have made good progress in improving our margins and achieving more stable results. We have completed projects with higher profitability and found a stable cost environment, which means we have significantly improved our performance compared to the previous year. After several years of high volatility and fluctuations, we now expect a more stable earnings and margin development during the year,” says José Luis Blanco, CEO of Nordex Group, in the statement.

In the first quarter, Nordex, a competitor to Vestas and Siemens Gamesa, generated revenue of EUR 1.57bn, corresponding to 29% growth, while analysts had estimated EUR 1.45bn, according to Bloomberg News.

Operating earnings, EBITDA, improved significantly to EUR 52.1m from a defecit of EUR 114.9m, resulting in an operating margin of 3.3% compared to minus 9.4% the previous year. The analyst estimate was EUR 16.1m.

In the first quarter, the German turbine supplier received orders worth EUR 1.77bn with a capacity of 2086 megawatts, which was significantly above last year’s level of EUR 917m and 1021 megawatts.

”The order intake of 2.1 gigawatts shows a strong start to the year with a stable average selling price of EUR 0.85 million per megawatt (compared to EUR 0.84m in the fourth quarter of 2023),” Nordex writes.

At the end of the first quarter, Nordex had an order book in the project business of EUR 7.3bn compared to EUR 6.5bn a year earlier.

For the full year, Nordex continues to expect revenue of EUR 7.0-7.7bn and an EBITDA margin of 2-4%. The medium-term operating margin target of 8% is also intact, the company says.

English edit: Catherine Brett