The wind turbine producer reported a profit before tax of €809m, also up 13.3% from 2009. The increases came as revenue reached €6636m – a 10% jump from the year before. Vestas’ EBIT rose by 28% to €856m.

In 2009, Vestas shipped 3320 wind turbines with an aggregate capacity of 6131 MW, against 6160 MW and 3250 wind turbines in 2008. A total of 4764 MW was delivered to Vestas' customers.

2010 outlook

Vestas has narrowed its forecast for 2010 due to late order intake. It expects to achieve an EBIT margin of 10-11% and revenue of €7 billion. Previously, the company estimated an EBIT margin of 10-12% and €7-8bn.

The inflow of firm and unconditional orders is expected to rise to 8-9 GW in 2010 from 3072 MW in 2009, 6019 MW in 2008 and 5613 MW in 2007.

In its full year report, Vestas says: “The year's [2009’s] order intake was significantly lower than originally planned, and orders were received much later in the year than expected. It is only now at the beginning of 2010, that the market for bank funding truly appears to be approaching a normal trend, although the banks are now far more critical and require much more documentation than they did previously.”

This prolongs the contract negotiation process.

Triple15

In October 2009, Vestas defined the financial targets – Triple15 – for its No. 1 in Modern Energy strategy: Vestas aims to achieve an EBIT margin of 15% and revenue of €15bn no later than 2015. This translates into an average annual growth of at least 15%.

Shareprice

At the time of writing, the Vestas sharprice had falled 6.6% to 279.30 since trading opened on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange on 10 February.