Strong wind turbine sales boost Nordex H1 2021 results

Nordex has announced significant year-on-year growth in sales and Ebitda in the first half of 2021, which it attributed to a “sharp increase in activity levels”.

It has also maintained its guidance for the full financial year.

Sales rose to €2.7 billion, the company stated, up 32% from the same period last year. Gross revenue rose by almost 17% percent to €2.3 billion, up from €2 billion in H1 2020.

Ebitda amounted to €68.4 million, against a €70.8 million loss in H1 2020, representing an Ebitda margin of 2.5% this year against negative 3.5% the previous year. This represents a marked improvement on Q1 2021 results, where the Ebitda margin was 0.8% .

“The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the operating business only had a limited influence on the group’s positive performance in the second quarter,” the company stated. 

“However, the indirect effects of the pandemic were still clearly evident in the upheaval in the raw materials and logistics markets,” it added. 

Nordex’s total order book at the end of June amounted to €7.7 billion, consisting of €4.8 million in the projects segment and €2.9 billion in the service segment.

The company recorded particularly strong turbine sales in the second quarter of the year.

Nordex’s order intake in the project segment increased by 9.9% to 2.8GW in the first six months of 2021. This intake is worth €1.9 billion, up from €1.8 billion in the same period of 2020. Of this order intake, 71% of the capacity was attributable to Europe and 29% to Latin America. 

Turbine assembly grew by 5.3% in the first half of 2021, to 3,105MW. The number of rotor blades produced by the group’s own plants rose year-on-year to 819 units, from 623 units in H1 2020. Nordex also procured 1,209 rotor blades from external suppliers, roughly the same number as last year.

Installations totalled 3GW split between 775 wind turbines in 21 countries, up from 2.1GW split between 610 wind turbines in 22 countries one year ago. In megawatts, 54% of installations were in Europe, 15% in North America, 18% in Latin America and 13% in the rest of the world. 

Nordex maintained its guidance for the current financial year of achieving consolidated sales of  €4.7-€5.2 billion and an Ebitda margin of 4.0%-5.5%. 

This guidance is subject to greater uncertainty than usual, as emphasised when it was originally issued in March 2021. 

“Our business performance continued to gather momentum in the second quarter, with profitability in particular improving as expected compared to the first quarter,” said José Luis Blanco, CEO of the Nordex Group. 

In July, Nordex successfully completed the rights issue announced at the end of June, generating gross issuing proceeds of €586.2 million.

The aim of this capital increase was to strengthen the balance sheet, increase financial flexibility and support future profitable growth.