/ 3 December 2009

Siemens sets sights on emerging economies

Siemens's CEO Peter Löscher says the company is looking to Asia and other emerging economies as prospects for growth there are strongest.

Siemens’s chief executive officer Peter Löscher says the company is looking to Asia and other emerging economies as prospects for growth there are strongest, after the worst recession to hit the world in 80 years.

“We are innovating products within emerging markets for those markets,” said Löscher at a press conference in Munich to announce 2009’s results.

Löscher said Siemens is deliberately using the crisis in a drive to concentrate on future markets.

As a leading supplier in the smart-grid market, Siemens plans to optimise this position by using two-way digital technology to address global climate issues.

Siemens became a technology leader in the solar thermal market a few weeks ago after its acquisition of Solel Solar Systems, a company which delivered revenue of approximately $160-million in the first nine months of 2009.

‘With this move our value creation in the solar thermal power plants has increased to more than 70%,” said Löscher.

For the first time in the post-war era, global GDP contracted and is expected to stay that way for the rest of the year. Experts expect it to decline by 2,1% in 2009. But with the support of government stimulus programmes and measures to stabilise the financial markets, experts forecast that it will grow by 2,6% in 2010.

Siemens exceeded their targets as revenue remained stable in spite of the shrinking economy.

Profits for total sectors rose to €7,5-billion, while income from continuing operations followed at €2,5-billion, exceeding 2008 figures by a third.

Siemens hasn been exempted from feeling the economic pinch and is experiencing repercussions of the crisis in new orders, although not as sharply as its competitors. New orders fell short of the 2008 record by 14% but the company’s three sectors continued to have a large order backlog of just over €81-billion, more than a year before the crisis.

Siemens attributes these results to the performance of the energy and healthcare sectors, both of which are within their margin ranges for 2010.

‘The energy sectors order backlog rose to a record €47-billion as all divisions reported higher revenue than in the previous year” said Löscher.

Business developments in the healthcare sector were also positive and Siemens Healthcare continued its dominance of the market. The progress in integrating acquisitions led profit to climb above €1,5-billion.