German industrial giant Siemens on Thursday said large orders for trains boosted earnings in the third quarter, helping to offset problems in its troubled wind energy business.
Between April and June, the group said it booked a net profit of € 1.4 billion ($1.5 billion), compared with a € 1.5-billion loss over the same period a year earlier.
Last year's loss was mainly down to a hefty impairment of its stake in Siemens Energy.
The same subsidiary reported a record loss on Monday as it counts the costs of fixing technical issues affecting its onshore wind turbines.
The Siemens group however said it had benefited from strong growth in other divisions in its third fiscal quarter, including major contracts for trains in Germany and a high-speed rail line in Egypt.
The conglomerate's smart infrastructure and digital industries units also performed well, lifting Siemens' overall revenues by 10 per cent year-on-year to 18.9 billion euros.
"We again achieved profitable growth and showed our competitive strength across all our businesses," CEO Roland Busch said in a statement.
The group confirmed its full-year target of achieving comparable revenue growth in the range of 9-11 per cent.
Siemens however lowered its outlook for digital industries, which includes factory automation products. The division is now expected to see comparable revenue growth of 13-15 per cent, compared with 17-20 per cent previously.
The downgrade comes after orders at digital industries fell by 35 percent over the quarter even as revenues rose by 11 per cent.
Orders at the division "were down in all regions, but most notably in China," Siemens said.
