Nordex has announced a record first quarter 2020 with sales of almost €1bn and a 1600MW order intake.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose to €13.1m, showing an EBITDA margin of 1.4%, up from €3.3m in the first quarter last year, a 0.8% margin.
Projects sales rose to €862m, up 176% from Q1 2019, while service sales rose 16.7% to €102m, accounting for total sales of €964.6m, said the German turbine manufacturer as it confirmed preliminary figures released last week.
The company’s equity ratio was 17.3%, down slightly from 18.6% at the end of last year.
Net debt amounted to €156.4m and the working capital ratio as a percentage of consolidated sales was at -7.5%.
Nordex said it had installed 269 turbines across 21 countries with a combined output of 899.2MW, up 245% from last year.
Europe accounted for 60% of the installed capacity, Latin America for 15%, North America for 13% and the rest of the world 12%.
Seventy-nine percent of the new order intake came from Europe, with the remaining 21% coming from Latin America.
The strongest individual markets were Norway, Chile, the UK, Turkey and Finland.
“We started the year as expected and recorded continuous, strong demand for our wind turbines from the Delta4000 series, which make up 85% of the 1.6 GW,” said Nordex chief executive Jose Luis Blanco.
“In the last few days of the quarter, we began to feel the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. This led to repeated interruptions in our supply chain and in production that are still continuing.
“Because a realistic and reliable assessment for financial year 2020 is no longer feasible, we have withdrawn our guidance.”
Turbine assembly rose from 698MW in the prior-year quarter to 1641MW in the first three months of 2020, the company announced.
The number of rotor blades produced was up marginally on the prior-year figure, rising to 321 from 300 units in the same quarter of the previous year.
Nordex said its production is always aligned with the delivery obligations associated with the projects.