ZURICH (Reuters) -German engineering and technology group Siemens posted a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit for its industrial business on Thursday and said its factory hardware and software continued to witness strong demand.
The company said in a statement it has seen growth in many markets despite a “continuing complex macroeconomic environment influenced by energy shortages and availability concerns stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, high inflation and effects associated with the coronavirus pandemic”.
Major disruptions caused by supply chain bottlenecks had been avoided, and the shortages showed signs of easing, it added.
This made the maker of trains, and industrial software confident for the future, saying it expected revenues to grow by 6% to 9% during its 2023 fiscal year.
“Strong demand continues for our hardware and software offerings, including higher than expected growth for our digital business revenue,” Chief Executive Officer Roland Busch said.
The results of Siemens, and peers like Switzerland’s ABB and France’s Schneider Electric, are seen as barometers for the global world economy, with their products used to automate factories, manage buildings and develop transport networks.
In the three months to Sept. 30, Siemens’s industrial profit rose 38% to 3.16 billion euros ($3.28 billion), beating forecasts for 2.79 billion euros in a company-gathered consensus of analysts.
Sales increased 18% to 20.57 billion euros – ahead of 19.13 billion euros forecast, while orders during the period rose to a better than expected 21.82 billion euros.
Helped by a 1.1 billion euro pretax gain from its sale of the mail and parcel handling business of Siemens logistics, shareholder net profit more than doubled to 2.7 billion euros.
(Reporting by John Revill, editing by Rachel More and Rashmi Aich)
