Roland Busch has been at the helm of the Siemens industrial group for a year now.

At the virtual Annual General Meeting on Thursday, the new CEO was able to boast very good figures for the first quarter, which the group had presented in the morning.

Siemens experienced an "unprecedented boom" in the months of October to December, said Busch, who reaffirmed the annual targets.

Incoming orders increased by 42 percent to more than 24 billion euros.

Customers would have preferred orders in many cases, also to cushion longer delivery times.

They invested a lot in automating their factories, in modern industrial facilities, in mobility and other areas.

Ilka Kopplin

Business correspondent in Munich.

  • Follow I follow

However, the Dax group is increasingly feeling the strained supply chains, especially with regard to semiconductors and electronic components.

"The shortage of some components will continue into the 2023 financial year," said Busch.

It will now take a few quarters for the orders to be processed, and in some cases lead to longer delivery times, said Busch.

Competitors such as the Swiss group ABB had recently reported delivery problems.

Busch nevertheless sees an advantage over the competition: "Especially at this time, the ability to deliver also determines market share." However, the figures show that Siemens has done well.

Production capacity utilization in the company's own factories was also good despite the tight supply chains.

Overall, Siemens generated revenue of 16 in the first quarter,

5 billion euros, 9 percent more than in the previous year.

The bottom line was a profit of 1.8 billion euros - 20 percent more than before.

In the meantime, the share price has increased by more than 7 percent, taking it to the top of the Dax.

Siemens has “even accelerated its growth course”

The first quarter thus followed seamlessly from the already successful past financial year, in which sales increased by more than 11 percent to a good 62 billion euros.

The margin improved to 15 percent.

The shareholders should participate in the success with a 50 cent higher dividend of 4 euros.

Siemens was founded 175 years ago.

"Initially we were a garage company in a Berlin backyard," a tech start-up by today's standards, Busch said.

Today, the group has grown into a focused technology company.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board Jim Hagemann Snabe also found words of praise: "In the first quarter, the company remained on course for growth and even accelerated it." He could not imagine a better start, said Snabe, who is often criticized by shareholders for his large number of supervisory board mandates.

Allianz announced on Thursday that Snabe would resign from the supervisory body in May.

Busch was introduced as the new head of the group in March 2020 and was able to prepare intensively in the months that followed, develop a strategy and put his team together.

"This 'flying start' was an invaluable advantage for Siemens at a time of great change and uncertainty."

Siemens focuses on pioneering technology fields and has further sharpened its portfolio in recent months and years.

"Siemens has a much clearer profile today than it did four years ago," he said.

The company is now faster growing and more profitable.

The medical technology group Siemens Healthineers and the energy technology company Siemens Energy had been listed on the stock exchange in recent years.

With its three core divisions of automation technology (Digital Industries), infrastructure (Smart Infrastructure) and railway technology (Mobility), Siemens sees itself as a technology group.

In the future, the aim is to increasingly generate recurring sales with software applications.

In order to focus on this, in the past Siemens had repeatedly divested itself of business areas that were no longer part of its core business,