By Christoph Steitz and Victoria Waldersee
(Reuters) -Siemens Energy reported first-quarter preliminary financial results on Tuesday that beat market expectations, saying it continued to see a positive market environment as the power equipment maker recovers from a major wind turbine crisis.
Frankfurt-listed shares in the company rose 5.2% following the news, which caps months of negative announcements around the group's onshore wind turbine business, where quality issues caused a major sell-off in its shares.
The company reported a 12.6% rise in first-quarter revenue on a comparable basis to 7.65 billion euros ($8.29 billion), higher than the 7.38 billion LSEG estimate. Its profit margin before special items came in at 2.7%, while order intake was up 23.6% at 15.38 billion euros.
"It is important that we do our homework quarter by quarter. In the wind business, this means solving the quality problems in the onshore segment, while for the remaining businesses it means utilizing the growth potential and achieving the targets we set ourselves," a Siemens Energy spokesperson said.
"We are on the right track, but no more and no less."
Siemens Energy has had repeated setbacks at its Siemens Gamesa wind turbine business which led to questions over its strategy of trying to serve broad swathes of the utility sector.
Siemens Energy chairman Joe Kaeser told Reuters last week that the company had not found any new flaws in its newest onshore wind turbines since it last commented on the matter in November, saying "the worst is over."
The first-quarter beat was mainly due to favourable project shifts, which may benefit some quarterly results but can swing back in subsequent period, which Siemens Energy said was the reason for keeping its full-year outlook.
Cash flow, meantime, came in at negative 283 million euros because of the "expected high cash outflow at Siemens Gamesa", said the company, which is scheduled to report full first-quarter results on Feb. 7, said.
($1 = 0.9231 euros)