Sales surged at the Nordex Group last year despite the Covid-19 pandemic, but earnings fell amid a relatively stable order intake, the wind turbine manufacturer’s preliminary financial figures show.

Consolidated sales rose 41.6% to €4.6bn ($5.5bn) in 2020 from the year earlier, but earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) fell 24.1% to €94m.

That resulted in an Ebitda (operating) margin of 2.0%, below the 3.8% achieved in 2019, which points to a lower operational profitability, but the OEM didn’t provide a preliminary net profit or loss figure or provide details on why Ebitda went down.

“In 2020, we took swift and pragmatic action to address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite these difficult conditions, we installed turbines with an output of around 5.5GW worldwide,” chief executive José Luis Blanco said.

“Our order intake benefited from the sustained momentum in the wind power market, with our higher-margin Delta4000 turbine technology performing particularly well.”

The company’s order intake reached 6GW last year, only slightly lower than the 6.2GW achieved in 2019. Europe accounted for 62%, and North America and Latin America for 19%. The company has been doing very well lately in selling cold-climate models to the booming Nordic market.

Investments fell to €162.9m, from the €172.5m spent a year earlier. Capital expenditure mainly financed the expansion of rotor blade production in Mexico, India and Brazil and the procurement of production, installation and transportation equipment.

The company will present its final audited figures for 2020 on 23 March.

Wind

Sales surge at wind group Nordex despite Covid pandemic