Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, forecast sales will increase to a record 7 billion euros ($9.5 billion) this year, more than analysts estimated.
Revenue will increase from 6.92 billion euros in 2010, the Randers, Denmark-based company said today in a stock-exchange statement. The manufacturer in November said 2011 sales would be “level” with 2010. The average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 30 analysts was 2011 revenue of 6.76 billion euros.
The credit crisis prompted banks to restrict loans to wind- park developers that buy turbines from Vestas and competitors including Germany’s Siemens AG, Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA of Spain and General Electric Co. Vestas today said that after a “tough year” the company is “on track” as customers agreed to buy a record amount of turbines last year.
“Orders are flowing again,” Gerard Reid, an analyst with Jefferies Group Inc. in London, said in a note before the earnings were published. “Vestas has taken the majority of orders placed among the publicly traded Western manufacturers.”
The shares rose as much as 6.4 percent in Copenhagen trading and were up 6.8 kroner, or 3.8 percent, to 183.9 kroner at 10:06 a.m. local time. The stock lost 44 percent last year compared with an 8.7 percent gain in the Bloomberg European 500 Index.
Vestas reported fourth-quarter earnings before interest and tax of 248 million euros when including one-time costs, missing the average estimate of a 348 million-euro profit in a Bloomberg survey of 16 analysts. Sales in the quarter more than doubled to 3.12 billion euros.
Global turbine contracts signed in the last six months of 2010 for delivery this year averaged 980,000 euros a megawatt, London-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance said Feb. 7. That’s down from 1.06 million euros for contracts signed in 2009 and a peak of 1.21 million euros in 2007 and 2008, the group said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen at cwienberg@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Quinson at tquinson@bloomberg.net
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