Siemens Blindsided by China Wind Boom Plans ‘Massive’ Investment

[jpak]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/siemens-plans-massive-wind-energy-investment-on-china.html

Siemens AG (SIE), the world’s largest maker of offshore wind turbines, said it underestimated the pace of growth in the Chinese wind market and will ramp up spending to catch up as local competitors increase their lead.

“We’re investing massively in research and development and to make use of economies of scale in production,” Felix Ferlemann, head of Siemens’s wind-power business, said in response to e-mailed questions. “We were somewhat taken by surprise by the strong growth of the Chinese market.”

China led the world in installing wind-power capacity last year. Munich-based Siemens is working to keep pace in the country, where it’s lagging behind suppliers such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), while competition puts pressure on prices. Profitability at Siemens’s renewable-energy unit was wiped out last year, calling into question Chief Executive Officer Peter Loescher’s strategy of focusing more on green technologies.

Siemens maintains its goal of becoming “a leading company in wind power,” while it’s not important if this takes two years or five, Ferlemann said. The company set a goal in 2009 to rank this year among the world’s top three wind-power companies by installed generating capacity.

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