Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH:VWS)
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Earnings Call: Q4 2021

Feb 10, 2022

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Good morning, welcome to this investor call for our final full year numbers for 2021. Of course, all that we have today should also be seen in connection with our announcement from the J anuary 26th. When we said see you tomorrow morning last night with Marika, we actually expected to sit here next to each other in Marika's final presentation. Unfortunately, she has this morning turned her car around and drove back to her apartment with sickness. We don't know if it's COVID or not. We will figure that one out.

That also means that we will say goodbye proper to Marika, and hopefully she will see many of you over the coming days and weeks where we will complete the roadshow. We will also be joined by Hans Martin, who is starting his new job now. Next to me today for those reasons, we have Mathias, which all of you know as well. Mathias and I will do the investor presentation today, and I'm sure we'll find a good split with 30 minutes preparation. Mathias, I'm sure we'll get through this presentation. With that, let's go into the highlights for 2021. We ended 2021 with revenue of EUR 15.6 billion.

It's a year-on-year revenue growth despite the increasing supply chain challenges. We had a very high level of deliveries at 16.6 GW. Impressive under the circumstances. We had an EBIT margin of 3%. The EBIT was hampered by supply chain disruptions, of course, causing cost inflation, but also the delays and the mitigations we have had to do, and ending with a higher warranty provision end of the year. We had a total order intake of 13.9 GW. We saw an increased pricing throughout the year. The wind turbine order backlog remained strong at a bit more than EUR 18 billion, and we had 3 GW of preferred supplier agreements signed for the new offshore platform. We were also awarded the prize of the most sustainable company in the world.

We ranked number one by Corporate Knights in the 18th annual global ranking. Of course, very pleased with that. We'll talk more about it in the presentation. Even more importantly, the strategic progress to become the global leader in sustainable energy solution continued. We made a full integration of offshore within our first 12 months. We have expanded development of the development business tremendously through 2021, and we made two investments through the Vestas Ventures in 2021. Let's go into a little bit more details, starting first with the global business environment. I will say it's the same, it's almost the same, and some of the things is repeating from what we have now been going through for almost two years.

We said by second half of 2021 that we foresee those challenges will remain and continue throughout 2022. It hasn't changed our priorities. The priorities still is that our almost 30,000 colleagues around the world can continue work in a safe and healthy environment and come and return safe to the workplace. Secondly, the business continuity plan is absolutely key for us, and it has been vitally since we started this journey in March 2020. Business continuity, so customers, governments, countries can rely on our energy solutions. Wind power is increasingly critical as a short-term electricity demand.

It increases around the world, but it also therefore supports our critical infrastructure exemption, which of course in many ways is very positive and supportive, but there are also days where it's pretty hard for the colleagues to deliver under that exemption around the world. We know we have had supply chain disruptions throughout the year, and they are continuing. It's an instability, and it continues to impact timelines and increase cost. We'll talk more about it now. It's not only the hedge of price, but it's also the instability and the not being able to rely on physical delivery on time pre-agreed and assumed. When we look at the cost inflation, it continues. It still is at almost all-time high in most of the components and the raw materials, and transport hasn't eased any from what we saw.

It's probably still at a troublesome path from what we saw end of last year and also starting into this year. Mobility has been a constraint both for our construction workers, for our partners, our suppliers, and not least our service technicians, and it has remained challenged. It's also therefore opportune here to absolutely take the opportunity to thank all our stakeholders. That means partners, customers, suppliers, not least our colleagues that have worked incredibly hard to deliver the 16.6 GW and kept our Energy solutions running. This has taken a lot of mitigations, and it has made a lot of personal sacrifices throughout the year, and for that, I thank you wholeheartedly for contributing to that. When we look at the Power Solutions, it is increased pricing.

It's a key factor for continuing and increasing the value creation for Vestas and also for the industry. We saw that there was a decrease in the order intake. It's impacted by accelerating, of course, the cost inflation and also timing of individual markets. It is a slowdown, which is compared with what can be seen, and there is still too much imbalance between offtake, customers financing and offtake, and of course, the price of the turbine. We see power prices continues at record high level. We see PPA levels are adjusting to it and have start coming up. That also means the imbalance is about to correct and adjust, but at a level which we don't know where that will be, but I'm sure we'll know more throughout 2022.

When we look at the ASP, it increased more than 20% in a year-on-year comparison. It is there to mitigate the cost inflation, and it is there to display the Vestas discipline that is needed across both onshore and offshore. We don't see that in the industry, and unfortunately, we still encourage the industry to pick up that discipline with immediate effect. When we look at the offshore, it's fully integrated. It also therefore invites customers to the increased dialogues we can have in all solutions, both in onshore, offshore, and in service. We're really encouraged by that. We also know that we put the systems down in the offshore business, and therefore it is now truly a part of the full Vestas family by end of the year.

We are positively encouraged by the 3 GW in preferred supplier agreements, and we continue the dialogue around the world in how to localize and how to help our partners and consortiums and governments to increase offshore as well. We ended the year with a wind turbine order backlog at EUR 18.1 billion and are pleased with that. Also pleased with the year, how it developed in ASP. When we then look at the service business, another stellar year, another year where we expanded the foundation for both future growth and also supporting our customers across the globe for making the solutions work under incredibly difficult conditions. Now offshore is fully integrated, which when we see the service business, that means we can leverage the global supply chain and scale.

It is also with a continued focus on our full-scope multi-brand contracts, where we have now passed 1 GW of multi-brand contracts in Latin America, which by the way became an individual region from first of January. When we then look at the duration of the service contracts, we now cover the full duration up till 35 years, and we are encouraged to see that there is an increasing demand for also the longer service parts to secure the full value of the investments in the renewable energy solution. When we look at it, we have an order backlog in service of EUR 29 billion. It's up EUR 5 billion more than similar quarter last year. We have 229 GW under service.

It's not long since we celebrated we passed 100 GW, and we have an average years contract duration of 10 years. Below, you will also see the splits in the regions, and there we of course are encouraged to see that all regions are growing, and we have a very leading position across the regions we operate in. With that, I will give a short status, of course, on sustainability and where we are with that. Yes, we are humbled to some extent to receive the award of the most sustainable company in the world, but we also know that is evidence, and it's also a reward to all the colleagues that have worked so hard with this to achieve it. When we look at the highlights, yes, we were named that.

We also know we have an A- score by CDP, and again, it highlights what we are doing from the climate leadership perspective, but also how we are displacing the CO2 across our solutions. We had an 8% increase in expected CO2 avoidance and displacement, as you can see here. It's now with the ones we installed, the 16.6 GW, it's 532 million tons of CO2 it will displace over its lifetime of the turbine. When we look at the increase in carbon emissions from our own activities, it relates to the integration of the offshore activities. It has started a lot more engagement also with the strategic suppliers to reduce the CO2 emissions and waste across the whole supply chain.

This is how we would both address the scope one, two, and three, and I'm sure we will talk more about that in details over the coming days and weeks. When we also saw we initiated the CETEC project, it's one of several projects where we are investing in to the important step in creating a full circularity of the turbine. We are delighted to see the progress. We also therefore believe at some point in time we can start having a look at our target that is a full circularity in 2040. More to come and more of those innovations, please. You've seen the charts discussed here to the right.

The last one I will just highlight here that when we look at the safety with an increased activity and with a very, very challenged mobility, we are delighted to see that the safety actually had an improvement in the year from 3.3 to 3.1. I would just say here to everyone, thanks for taking care of each other in those difficult circumstances. With that, I was supposed to just look to my right in saying, please, Marika, but Mathias, please, Mathias, take us through the financials, and then we will take the details afterwards.

Mathias Dalsten
VP and Head of Investor Relations, Vestas Wind Systems

Thank you, Henrik, and good morning, everyone. If we have a look at the income statement, as we have released earlier, revenue came in at EUR 15.6 billion, which is a 5.2% increase year over year. That is mainly driven by increased service activity and as well, of course, the inclusion of the offshore business. If we look at the gross margin, it decreased slightly by 0.4 percentage points to 10%, and that was positively impacted by the overall higher revenue and the service activities, but negatively impacted by the Power Solutions segment.

EBIT margin before special items decreased 2.1 percentage points to 3%, and that is mainly driven by the higher SG&A cost as a result of the offshore integration. Special items for 2021 amounted to EUR 139 million, and that is related to the alignment of the offshore manufacturing footprint that we have announced earlier. If we have a look at the Q4 in isolation, revenue increased 6.5% year-over-year. We saw gross margin decreasing by 3.9 percentage points to close to 9%, and that is driven by the higher warranty provisions we saw in the quarter, impacted as well by the supply chain disruption that we are seeing.

EBIT margin before special items decreased consequently by 6.1 percentage points, driven by the lower gross profit and as well the higher SG&A also here in the quarter. If we have a look at the Power Solutions segment for the full year, then we continue to see profitability being challenged. We did see revenue increase 2.7 percentage points year-over-year, and that is of course again driven by offshore actually offsetting a decrease in the onshore activity level. The EBIT margin decreased to 1.5%, and that is really driven by the supply chain disruptions that has also caused the cost inflation and higher warranty provisions.

For the service business, we are looking at a strong revenue growth year-over-year of 21%. That is really driven by the onshore activity, of course also the inclusion of the offshore business, but the onshore activity where we have seen towards the end of the year an increase in the transactional sales that we are doing. We saw EBIT for the full year of EUR 599 million, corresponding to a margin of 24.1%. Again, also impacted by the integration of offshore, but also the higher share of the transactional sales and services that we have seen.

When we look at the SG&A cost, they increased year-over-year, primarily driven by offshore integration, which has caused an increase in depreciation, but has also resulted in increased IT investments and especially also ceasing of the existing offshore IT systems. Relative to the activity levels, we are still tracking at a fairly low level, 7.1% of revenue. If we look at the net working capital, was generally stable over the year, negatively impacted by a build-up in inventories, but offset by payables and to some extent also the down payments and milestone payments.

Looking at the cash flow, we continue to see a positive cash flow and actually an increase compared to last year. Cash flow in 2021 ended at EUR 183 million, which is an improvement, and it is driven by operating activities and as well the stable net working capital. Further to that, we are also about to initiate the issue of a new sustainability-linked green bond facility, which will be introduced in an upcoming bond roadshow. If we look at the investments, increased year-over-year as we had also expected.

It is mainly driven by continued investments in our EnVentus platform, but of course also now that we take full ownership of the introduction of the V236 offshore turbine. If we have a look at the warranty provisions and the loss production factor, obviously we continue to have a very high focus here. We have seen the loss production factor continuing to be at a high level, and that is a consequence of the extraordinary level of repair and upgrades that we are doing for customers as we speak.

Consequently, also we saw warranty provisions being higher in 2021, 4.4% of revenue, and that level is driven by the cost inflation that we have seen, the logistical challenges for actually doing the repair and the upgrades on the existing cases that we have addressed earlier. It's positive to see on this is also that the consumption of the provision stays at a relatively high level, which obviously indicates that we are working ourselves through the level of repair and upgrades that we need to do. Lastly, on the capital structure, we continue to see a net debt to EBITDA being well below our threshold.

We see that coming in by the end of 2021 at - 0.9%. We still have a rating from Moody's of Baa1, highlighting the financial strength that we continue to see. Over the course of 2021, we initiated a EUR 2 billion sustainability-linked revolving credit facility, and as well, start to initiate the new sustainability-linked bond that I mentioned before. We also propose a dividend for the year, 30% of net profit as we normally do, which equals EUR 0.05 per share. With that, I'll hand it back to you, Henrik.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Thank you so much, Mathias. It must be nice to talk through your own slides for once, right? I know who knows both the slides and the details of that. Mathias, thank you so much with not a lot of preparation and time for doing that really well. As a part of the full year, we will as normally also here both do a strategy short review and also look at the market outlook of where we are today. Some of it you will see is definitely linked and also to some extent a repeat of what we discussed and what is available from our Capital Markets Day on the December 15th.

With if we look at the Vestas and the journey to both become and being the global leader in sustainable energy solutions, no doubt that we are creating and we have created a foundation of our three business units that is Onshore, Service, and Offshore. This is our core foundation, giving us the opportunity to also do things in new growth areas. We saw and we have seen, and you have seen the acceleration of development, which of course is part of what we have been looking into and done for a number of years. As part of 2021, we made it as a separate business unit globally.

This leads to that we for many customers and many governments and countries can actually accelerate the transition towards renewable energy solutions across the world, and I'm delighted to see that team, together with our customers, continue to accelerate this. We also in the other box says future innovation. Here you will see some of our investments in Vestas Ventures. You will also see us start doing projects and customer innovation, where we will also lean towards what is known as the P2X or hydrogen, where now that starts to become something people are really looking into, not only for the coming years, but even further, with an enormous upside towards the volume when we look towards end of this decade and into the next decade.

When we then look at what does this then mean for, sort of the change, and the step change in some of these scenarios, we are absolutely positioned in the right place and at the right time, but of course, with some challenges in the short term and due to those short-term imbalances. If we just look at it, wind and the electricity production from wind was by this approximately 1% of the total energy supply when we look in 2020. We often talks about it internally as 99% to go, but I think it is fair saying we are making a difference. We are making a difference to this every quarter and also by every year.

When we also then compare to what are the aspirations to some extent from countries, governments and all of us around the world in the renewable transition, then it's quite interesting to take 2020 as a starting point and just add what are actually the current stated policies, goals, what are the announced pledges when it comes to carbon emission reduction, and what are the sustainable development, if you want to compare to the Paris Agreement, and then not least, if we want to aspire to be net zero when we approach 2050 and 2060. We have shown some of those scenarios here and also trying to translate that into an annual installation in gigawatts.

As you can see, even with the stated policies right now, there is a steep increase in the annual installations. That of course comes from both onshore and offshore, and you can see that offshore being almost announced not only by the week but by month in countries where they are launching new frameworks and new permitting when we look to the second half of this decade to get the infrastructure and the scalability started to actually work across those targets for reducing CO2 emissions but also create much more renewable energy in the terawatts supply.

If we look at our parts and our portfolio of businesses, there is no doubt, and we have said that all along, we are uniquely positioned in onshore, in service, and we are building and extending that unique position into the offshore market as well. Onshore, it's a large market. It's very well developed, it's mature. When we look at that towards 2025, we still see a 2%-4% compounded average growth rates. There are some near-term readjustments of the market, which some of them leads to there has to be created a balance between what is the current offtake PPAs and also the price of it.

Part of that is also that some of the projects are still in the pipeline and have been in the pipeline for some quarters, where that needs to find its natural home. When we look at the increased ambitions from governments, it's definitely going to drive further upsides. We have in the last quarter most notably seen several European main markets, including Germany, announcing much bigger targets and also now addressing the key challenge in this sense, which is the permitting. When we look at it, we see an increasing demand for repowering. That's obvious, and it's something that helps many countries and also many owners and customers of our solutions that actually to get a better return when we look to the coming decades.

We also see Power-to-X, and we now see in the balancing of hybrid projects, some of it will both be on grid and some of it will be off grid. When we come to offshore, it's a huge expansion right now in Europe. It's new markets such as the U.S., Korea and broader Asia Pacific and now also Latin America. Not surprisingly, we will in those rely heavily on the handshake that happens between the government and customers because there is no such thing as localization without an underlying volume and growth in it, then it won't work. If we look at the growth, it is of course here seen in any forecast now that the growth is to accelerate post 2024, and we are making those progressions as we speak.

We still encourage everyone to remain disciplined because this is also a question of the demand and the scalability will be key critical when we look to the second half of this decade. We also are key together with our customers and partners, close partners, to look into how we increase the floating projects and also Power-to-X. Here it is really a matter of working closely with a low selected number of partners in these areas. When it comes to service, we are a global leading provider in this with having 129 GW under service. Of course, we see that's a solid growth for the high base. We expect a compounded annual growth rate of 7%-10%. Of course, here we can expand.

We can expand it both from a solution scope, but also it's driven by the digital talks from the turbine and the wind parks to also further strengthen the global scale. It's a fabulous business. We like it a lot, and we continue investing in it. All our colleagues in that part of Vestas deserve a huge credit for the progress they have made in 2021. We also come to our long-term financial targets. Rest assured that even though the starting point is with the guidance of 0%-4%, we are absolutely committed to the same journey toward 2025, towards the 10%.

The handles we have seen throughout also both 2020 and 2021 are actually working, but we need to work through some of those short-term instabilities that comes from especially the logistic supply chain and for some of them also our own parts which relate especially to technology pricing. Then we will have the cost efficiency, we will have the service in here, and we will also see both the offshore and onshore volume changing throughout the period here towards 2025. I will also remember and also see here that quality is in here because that is we are adamant of a part where there will also be an improvement when we look to the years to come.

Overall, yes, we would like to outgrow the market in revenue. Yes, we will aim for an EBIT margin of more than 10% by 2025. We are aiming for free cash flow positivity every year and also return on capital employed that is more than 20% over the cycle. We all know that if those are, they are just a natural result of the others that come to that. With that, I will just shortly here say we are encouraged by seeing the progress we are making in becoming carbon neutral by 2030 without using the carbon offsets.

It's now held and is held by responsibility from not only the internal Vestas functions, but it's also held by our close cooperations with our customers and partners and suppliers in general. We aim for a circularity, which means we will have a wind turbine that is zero waste and also fully circular by 2040. It cannot be done without seeing both the engagement but also the positive ownership and responsibility across Vestas worldwide.

When we look forward, we call it the license to operate, but we are absolutely adamant of that by 2030, this will be a license to operate not only for Vestas, but also for many of our customers and suppliers in tandem when we look at that. With that, I will finish off with giving a little bit more details on the outlook compared to what we said on January 26. Our revenue outlook for 2022 is EUR 15 billion-EUR 16.5 billion. The service is expected to grow approximately 5%. The EBIT margin is 0%-4%, of which service margin is expected to be approximately 25%. Our total investments in the year is approximately EUR 1 billion.

It's also worth highlighting here that in the current business environment, some of those are base assumptions that are in the guidance, will come with more uncertainty than in normal conditions. I think we have said that, now for a number of quarters, and it still remains the same, that we are in a business that is currently troubled and challenged by the supply chain. We also, here, the guidance excludes the general change that comes and is announced from the IFRS board, which means that we will have a change in accounting policy when it comes to cloud computing arrangement. But I think that's generally for all companies across the world.

As I said, lastly, the 2022 outlook is based on the current foreign exchange rates that we see right now. With that, thank you so much, and I look forward to also, together with the rest of the team and Hans Martin, to see many of you over the coming days and weeks. With that, hand over to the operator and start the Q&A.

Operator

Thank you. If you have a question for the speakers, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. We ask you kindly to limit your questions to two at a time. Our first question comes from Casper Blom from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Casper Blom
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Thank you very much. Hi, Henrik and Mathias. Two questions from me. The first goes to the onshore order intake ASP of EUR 0.86 million per megawatt here in the quarter. Are you happy with this? Is this enough? And is this supportive for reaching your longer-term margin targets? That's the first question. The second question goes to the service business. We are seeing a little bit of a standstill in terms of growing the onshore business right now in terms of order intake. And you've also talked about the market being a little bit flattish here the next couple of years. Should that also mean that if you look a couple of years ahead, we should see a little bit of a temporary standstill with regards to service revenue growth?

Maybe you can talk a bit about the spillover effects from the order intake into the service business. Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Thanks, Casper. We come back to the ASP. I think 86 means, as we also said here, in sort of reasonable comparable notes, it's somewhere around 20% higher than it was a year ago. We're happy with the order intake, we're happy with the mix and geographies of it. You can also compare 86 to the average for the year, and also see that it also illustrates that we are learning throughout the year. Some of the costing cannot simply be turned into the order intake with the pace of what we have seen in the change of pricing. Therefore, the 86 reflects what we had now been saying consistently for several quarters.

Prices are coming up, and if you're not aware of your costings, then you will actually end up having an incredibly challenged project backlog. We are happy with that. Is that solely enough to meet a margin target? No, it's not, Casper, because pricing is one part of what I just shared and showed with you. That comes back to also we work diligently through all our handles. They are working. We actually see an increased discipline and execution on the projects which we have talked so intensely about. When it comes down to also not only the price risk, but it is also the physical delivery risk that we have seen in components and raw materials, I think that's some of the things we are working through.

Actually, we have become pretty good in mitigating, but it is not without the same kind of challenges when we enter 2022, which we've also been saying for a couple of quarters. When it comes to the service business and growth, which we say approximately 5%, it's always nice here to sit and finish a year where it was extraordinary high with 21. I think when we say a compounded average growth rates, in this, there will be a topic of when do you finish the year? When do you start the next quarters, and what does that mean for the average compounded growth rates?

We don't see that necessarily is going to be hindered, but of course, we see it right now that part of the order intake has an effect on the service business. Besides that, we are very pleased with also the growth which happens in markets and regions where we are present and can also service some of the existing solutions in either Vestas or the multibrand.

Casper Blom
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. Thank you, Henrik.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ajay Patel
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Utilities and Clean Energy Technology, Goldman Sachs

Good morning. Firstly, thank you for the presentation. I have two questions. Firstly, I'd like to unpack the outlook a little bit. Can you give us broad indications of how much EBIT margin has been lost in 2022 from the delayed pass-through of raw materials costs? How much has been impacted or was embedded for supply disruptions? Just trying to get a better sense of how a bit of a quantification for each, so that we can think about the future a little bit better. Within the outlook guidance, is there any amount assumed for early stage development and the profits that you may attain from that? Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Yeah. If I take your outlook first, I think if we were able to put up sort of a future look into what kind of mitigations you had to assume, Ajay, I will almost say we will be over natural, because what we have seen quarter-on-quarter, we have executed 16 GW. We assume the current challenges are continuing. We said that and we have been prepared for that through second half of last year. Some of the mitigations, you simply cannot just euro for euro or dollar for dollar predict the scope of.

As we are saying, it's also a reflection of that we are saying to you here that our EBIT guidance is slightly wider than it normally would be with the entry to the year, which is now between 0%-4%, which is also an indication of that we have the usual process. We work diligently through what we have in our pipeline and backlog, and therefore we work those. When it comes down to breaking exactly on a supply chain or a part of a transport, what that gives us of difficulties, we wouldn't like to disclose that considering the aspect of both the industry and also what we are doing in terms of project to project.

I think we have allowed ourselves to have the usual scenario building and then also assumed that the challenges we have seen and experienced now for six to seven quarters will be continuing in 2022. When it comes to early stage development, co-development, you would appreciate when you saw the presentation we made on the capital markets day that we don't have significant projects as such to guide for. Of course, as you will also appreciate, there will, in the current environment, come a natural partnership where there are projects that can go from very early stages to early stages to suddenly be a joint input to a partner and a customer that wants to take it and develop it and accelerate it further, which can give us.

Therefore, we don't have a particular number associated with the development in our guidance. It's a business unit now, and therefore we run it in parallel. We won't give a specific P&L for it.

Ajay Patel
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Utilities and Clean Energy Technology, Goldman Sachs

May I just follow up on the first part, please? Maybe you can't answer it in the way that I asked, but I was just wondering, then maybe the other way to ask the same question would be, you've had a 20% increase in ASP Q4 on Q4 2021 versus 2020. Is that now at a level to cover the raw material inflation that we've seen over the last 18 months? Or do we need further increases in ASP to make sure the costs are covered?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I think you can read a lot into Ajay, if I can say that, Q4 ended at 0.86 versus an average for the year of 0.81, which is a pretty good indication that it has actually gone against us most of the year. The way it works in our, you know it, in our industry, is that we are forward pricing, and therefore it's whenever it goes that rapidly up, you cannot actually forward price things you don't know. That's a fair reflection that we are fairly well-positioned, and the volatility throughout Q4 in Q1 has at least been lower than it was in the other quarters of the year. What I mean by volatility, I mean transport pricing and raw materials and components. If that's okay, Ajay, we could take the next question.

Ajay Patel
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Utilities and Clean Energy Technology, Goldman Sachs

Much.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

In line.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Dan Togo from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Dan Togo Jensen
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

Yes, hello. Thank you. A couple questions as well from me. Maybe on offshore, you have previously guided revenue in offshore in the range of EUR 2 billion-EUR 2.5 billion here in both 2021 and 2022 and low single digits margins. Are there any reasons to change that, or anything that can impact that, let's put it that way? That would be the first question. The second question would be on the development side, the CapEx of EUR 250 million per annum until 2024. There's a lot of cost inflation here, shortage of staff, et cetera.

Any impact on the CapEx guidance that you have would be appreciated. Or comments on that would be appreciated. Also maybe are there any particular milestones we should look out for in development plan here? We are seeing some of your competitors having some problems with the development of their platforms. Are there any milestones where you can say where you can confirm us that you are well on track for this development of this 15 MW platform?

Mathias Dalsten
VP and Head of Investor Relations, Vestas Wind Systems

Thanks, Dan. If I start with your first question on the offshore part, yes, we did guide for between EUR 2 billion and EUR 2.5 billion revenue offshore. Bear in mind that was sort of the look on the entire offshore business, so that included service. With ending the year at EUR 2.3 billion only on the turbine side, I think it's fair to say that we have been able to accelerate some of the installations that we foreseen over those two years of 2021 and 2022. So for that reason, I think it would probably be prudent to lower the expectations for what offshore turbines can do in 2022 just a little bit.

Dan Togo Jensen
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

Understood.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

When it comes to your CapEx question, in general, we continue doing so. You have seen we are making some of the announced changes to it. In the other part, when you have a broad outline of how you're going to spend your CapEx and also do the localization, there is an unknown and a question mark because in many parts of the world right now, you're also into a government discussion of who is actually investing and who is co-investing with you when you localize some of these. In broad numbers, don't need to change any of the CapEx number in that from when we originally set out the journey towards 2025 for the offshore.

When it comes to our platforms, we are well underway in delivering the platforms. We are not holding any question marks to neither the platforms or what we are looking into, and we are diligently working with our normal lead times there with through our research and development around the world. As you would have seen in the warranty provision, we have had the two outstanding cases you know of, which we are working diligently through, and that's basically what is still to do and get finished throughout 2022.

Dan Togo Jensen
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Supriya Subramanian from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Supriya Subramanian
Director and Equity Research Analyst of EMEA Energy Transition and European Capital Goods, UBS

Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. My first question is on pricing again. Just wanted to get your thoughts on all the ASP price tags that we've seen. When do you think that goes towards sort of meaningfully impacting the P&L and actually supporting margins? Would that be only towards the second half of 2022? And also, how sticky do you think these prices are? Let's say towards the end of 2022 or in 2023, if raw material prices and costs start to go down, do you think you would need to proportionately sort of pass that on to customers? Or do you think you can still save some of the price hikes that you have taken in 2021? Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I think on the ASP, it's clear. We are talking often in hundreds of millions of euros or even in billions of euros when you talk about projects of this nature, Supriya. If you look at that, of course we will have in close dialogue with any customer we are planning and doing that for. When we look at an ASP, I think right now where there are more tensions are probably where customers have secured their offtake early on and potentially haven't secured the levelized cost of energy and therefore the turbine price on it, because there you are left with a gap in the current environment.

Right now, PPAs are coming up towards energy prices you have seen, and that also gives that still from an investment decision point of view, it actually works pretty well if you started with any new project today. It also means it is a competitive world. We have customers that know their markets, and it's clear that if some of the prices starts coming down, I'm pretty sure we will have a discussion on ASP because people won't close their eyes for that. I think for us as Vestas, the most important thing for us when it starts easing, and I'm saying when it starts easing, and we don't see that in 2022, just to make it clear again, is then all of the unknowns and the mitigations for some of this drops out.

Of course, there will be also some of this where if we haven't been able to pass the price increases in the backlog, then of course, if it eases up, then some of those would also go to the benefit of Vestas. That's beyond any doubt.

Mathias Dalsten
VP and Head of Investor Relations, Vestas Wind Systems

Then maybe on the first part of your question, Supriya, in terms of the elevated ASP in the fourth quarter, when that turns into the P&L, that will not be towards the second half of 2022. As you say, that will be a little bit longer term. 2022 has a good coverage, and the ASP increase in Q4 will only have a small benefit in 2022, if any.

Supriya Subramanian
Director and Equity Research Analyst of EMEA Energy Transition and European Capital Goods, UBS

My second question is more around demand development and, you know, of course, order intake has been a bit sluggish this year so far. Is there any difference between regions that you're seeing in terms of momentum, not just in 1 Q, but sort of going through 2022 as well? What are your thoughts on how demand is likely to develop across the various key areas?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I think we have to break it into two parts. I mean, beyond any doubt, quarter by quarter in 2021 in that environment we have been dealing with in 2021, it is critical to know your costing, and it's critical also to be able to back off from where projects suddenly become don't touch it, so to say, from a profitability point of view. If you haven't done that, it ends badly. We are saying if we have in certain markets a lower market share because somebody is offering, we call it a non-fully costed project, then we live with a lower order intake.

If we have seen it, there are both in Americas and in Europe, and to some extent in certain markets in Asia, a backlog of projects that haven't been built, and therefore some of that will come. We generally see it takes longer because you have, as a customer and a partner, to go back and revisit both your financing and in many places also how you do your offtake. It will come. I won't give you a quarter to it. We are at the same time encouraged by that most countries are putting a real effort in accelerating the permitting and therefore bringing also new projects into the pipeline.

I think let's see how soon we can clear some of the outstanding, a little bit caught in the imbalances project, but then the new projects are also coming and being discussed as we speak. But there can be no doubts that for us, we would rather have a either lower market share or a lower order intake than sitting and working with a loss making and therefore a non-value creating pipeline.

Supriya Subramanian
Director and Equity Research Analyst of EMEA Energy Transition and European Capital Goods, UBS

Great. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Sean McLoughlin
Director of Industrials and Clean Technology Research, HSBC

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, on warranties, how quickly do you expect these to normalize in 2022, or are we staying near the 5% of sales level rather than 3%? My second question is on CapEx. Can we break down this EUR 1 billion figure a little bit? How much is offshore? How much is onshore? What else in there? Is EUR 1 billion, in fact, the norm going forward, and how will that impact cash generation in 2022? Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

First of all, the warranty, as you would expect, when you look at the warranty, and you can follow that from a provision point of view, you make that and look into the future, and then you should expect a consumption of it. You can see the breakdown, and you can follow those, which we do absolutely on a quarterly basis. In this case, we have said that we were doing the provisions early on. We're adjusting the provisions also for what the circumstances we're in, as you can see in Q4. You can also see our consumption is running at a relatively high level, as Mathias said.

That will continue throughout most part of 2022, leveling off when we are past those repairs and upgrades. I think that's an important. The other one is breakdown of CapEx. Sean, I know the world is small. We don't give a breakdown of that. That's too good from a global company like Vestas that is coming into offshore as well. You can follow what we are doing of adjustment in our localizations and to some extent also consolidation of our manufacturing footprint, and that's where you should be seeing it. When it comes to CapEx into the turbines and the technology, you will generally be able to see that. As an incoming leader to the offshore, we will not provide that breakdown.

Sean McLoughlin
Director of Industrials and Clean Technology Research, HSBC

Thank you. I suppose then, can I just ask again, is this the kind of level that we should expect on a regular basis, or is there something, let's say, that is, you know, you're pushing hard onto the 15 MW platform this year, therefore it's higher than you'd expect over the following-

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

We have all along said, when we set out the journey, and this is what we are sticking to, the journey we set towards 2025 was that in that period of time, it will be around that level. You're also seeing we've done a little lower in 2021, compared to where we initially did. Plus minus the same over the coming few years, where we are now at some point in time leveling off the CapEx into the technology and ramping up the CapEx spend for localization. That's a natural one, and the only thing I will encourage you to do is follow a little bit when we announce localizations and footprint establishing, Sean, because that's the best way. In the short to medium term, that's around the level, and then it will start leveling off when you've done your right supply chain for the offshore as well.

Sean McLoughlin
Director of Industrials and Clean Technology Research, HSBC

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Deepa Venkateswaran from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Deepa Venkateswaran
Managing Director and Senior Analyst of European Utilities and Clean Energy, Bernstein

Thank you. My two questions, one is starting with logistics. I believe Maersk today when they were giving guidance said that they start seeing a normalization in ocean freight in the second half of the year. I was just wondering, obviously, you know, maybe they're being conservative, but Henrik, just wanted to see how this ties in with your assumption that actually you continue seeing disruptions through the year. I think you also mentioned that at least the rates have stabilized, they are no longer increasing. Is that a forward indication that perhaps second half could be normal? I had a follow-up question on the services growth.

Before consolidating offshore wind and the services, you were having high single-digit growth in that business and, you know, your long-term outlook as well from the market projections is similar. Just wanted to put this 5% that you've guided for this year in context of where you expect in the medium to long term. You know, should we still think that it would be around high single-digit, or is there anything unusual in 2022 that pushes this down? Maybe just some further clarity on that would be helpful. Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Deepa, first of all, thank you so much. I think on the transport side and what Maersk and potentially DSV have been saying yesterday, I think they are two close partners to Vestas. We worked closely with them, and I don't know if you can get any more positive market view than we can get. What we generally see in transport, and I think also Søren Skou was quoted for that yesterday, that it will take most of 2022 to actually work through this instability. I think right now, just the backlog of things and ships in wait and hold outside harbors will take months to clear.

Even as of today when you start hearing about that it's clearing, it will take quite a long time to clear the backlog. For us, please, I know everyone are focusing on this, is just a rate issue. Rate and price is one thing. The other thing that happens is, both from an inbound and an outbound point of view, is actually the instability and the deviations that forces you to find mitigations for delayed incoming components and raw materials or also at sites when outbound can't access the places where we are establishing it. Yes, we are absolutely positive that it hasn't changed as much in the last quarter, but that also means it still remains at a fairly high level.

It's not long ago, couple of weekends where we had delay and closure in certain harbors, which we see especially in Asia-Pacific. When we talk about the service growth, we just come out of a fourth quarter where a lot of things happen in and around, and we're not necessarily surprised by it because if you have that high day-to-day electricity rates, then of course everyone will do whatever they can in preventative maintenance. Some of those transactional sales and one-off is just people accelerating to get the maximum out of turbines. That led to a service growth ending the year of 21%. We are saying, as we just stated in here, 7%-10%, expect the same.

We like the business, and in general, we are just coming into the year with that strong finish, a little cautious of the 5%. That's what we are starting the year with. Don't forget, again, it's a EUR 2.5 billion business. So 1%, yeah, it's EUR 25 million in top line. So there is that uncertainty in the current environment.

Deepa Venkateswaran
Managing Director and Senior Analyst of European Utilities and Clean Energy, Bernstein

Okay. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Akash Gupta
Executive Director of Equity Research in European Capital Goods, JPMorgan

Yes. Hi. Good morning, Henrik, and thank you for your time. My first question is on demand as well, and this is more related to demand in emerging markets. I mean, you said earlier that PPAs are going up, and we see that in Europe and also in parts of the U.S. as well. Maybe just wondering what you see in emerging markets, in terms of where we have a little bit more sensitivity to price and also in some markets where we have higher risk to solar. So if you can comment on that. Secondly, second question is on your wind farm development pipeline, if you can help us quantify the gains you had in 2021.

I think in the first nine months, you said you farmed down 1.3 GW of projects, and just wanted to get whether the gain was we are talking about double-digit million euros, or was it more in triple-digit million euros range? Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Okay. As I have Mathias here next to me, I will let him take also a bit on the wind farm and developments. On the energy side and especially the demand side, I think it is very clear that if you look across it, I don't think, Akash, we are no longer in the scenario where we had certain markets or certain parts of the world talking about either energy or electricity being for free. I think those sort of scenarios which was actually almost dominant in certain markets in the beginning of 2020, that's long gone.

When you look into Latin America, if you look into Asia-Pacific, in most of those markets, you actually have something that moves pretty rapidly, but you also have governments that see the upside, and therefore the upside in it might be an ASP has gone up with double-digit percentages for sure, but it is also another way of accelerating therefore to mitigate further spikes in the electricity pricing. I'm really encouraged here by some of the discussions we are having. We also see, unfortunately, some countries that suddenly delay some of their targets, which comes in either onshore or offshore, and we deal directly both with customers and governments in those sorts of scenarios. We are quite adamant that this has to happen.

When we look at the demand cycle, we had more countries that are announcing increasing targets and now also becoming more specific in how to achieve them from a permitting than we have seen ever before. Let's overcome the coming quarters of these challenges, and then we will embark into that. You know, like in India. A lot of things hasn't been built of what has been auctioned, and at some point in time, comparing levelized cost of energy will trigger new decisions in some of those markets.

Mathias Dalsten
VP and Head of Investor Relations, Vestas Wind Systems

On the development side, Akash, as we again, as Henrik said, we mentioned it quite a few times on the Capital Markets Day. We are seeing good progress in that business. It is now a standalone business here in the Investor Relations and we continue to see a good development there. As we've been saying the entire time, it will have a relatively limited impact, and in 2021 we did see a positive impact of around EUR 30 million, which of course we are very happy with.

Akash Gupta
Executive Director of Equity Research in European Capital Goods, JPMorgan

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Ben Heelan from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ben Heelan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Bank of America

Yeah. Morning, guys. Hope you're both well. First question for me was on orders, and what are your expectations, even if it's high level, for the year in terms of of onshore and offshore? I know you've talked a little bit about the volatility impacting the order environment. Should we be assuming a similar level of orders this year in the onshore business? And then second question is obviously a very challenging 2021. I think one of the competitors talked about doing things with contracts like trying to add logistics as cost plus. Is that something that you guys can consider doing? Generally, you know, what when you look back at 2021, what can you change to prevent that happening again? Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

If we take the orders, Ben, and I think we are, we're quite transparent in our discussions throughout the year, and you can see it in the ASP. You know what you do when you take the order intake, and then you have the variables, and you deal with it. Where we ended shy of 14 GW is not a target we aspire to take, but we cannot let ourselves deviate from the point of we would rather having faced with the choice of having a lower market share or less orders, we would rather do that in a period of time until we can see that we can get the needed both price and value for our solutions.

When we come into 2022, we aim for something that is more than the current run rate of orders. Again, it all comes down to how we can build that in the markets we're at, and we are positively over that, and you will also see the value of our backlog is reflecting those market conditions. We are entering 2022, but I won't give you an expectation of what quarters we see that in because right now that's simply down to project by project, which we have in all continents and in all markets, and generally all markets seem to be open for that discussion.

When it comes to 2021 and the challenges we have seen, I think the overall first and foremost most important challenge you have to overcome is you have to know your costing of your whole supply chain. If you don't know the costing of your supply chain, you can't price your solution. I think that we have put in an awful lot of discipline and an awful lot of work into. We came into 2021, felt we were very well equipped for it. I also hope that everyone on the call here appreciate this has not been normal market condition. It has not been 5% or 10% deviations or fluctuations. We are now talking about potentially underlying historical inflationary changes that is a 40 to 50 years case.

Therefore, dealing with that, I don't think building clauses is the only thing. It's part of it, and then it's a part of a partnership with your customer to also say, "How do we jointly mitigate where not only price but also timing of it goes wrong?" But it's too easy to say that it's just a new catalog of clauses to mitigate anything because it's probably the most important, not clause, but is actually to take the phone and talk about how we mitigate some of those issues going on. We are protecting, we're using what we have always been doing, and we are strongly believing in that model is absolutely still there, despite the challenges we have seen in both 2020 and 2021.

Ben Heelan
Managing Director of Equity Research, Bank of America

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Claus Almer from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Claus Almer
Senior Equity Analyst, Nordea Markets

Thank you. Yeah. Also a few questions from my side. The first question goes to the pipeline. Henrik, if you go back, let's say two quarters from now and look at what is still in the pipeline, could you put a percentage on projects that has been put on hold, projects that has disappeared from the pipeline given the trend in the ASP? That would be the first question.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Okay. No, I can't tell you because you're asking me also a little bit to therefore comment on what went wrong with other people and how badly they did on setting the right ASP in those, and I generally don't do that, Claus. If we look at our pipeline, and you can see it, if we are honest, if you have an average over the year that ends at 0.81, of course, you would have told me, "Well, you should have started with a higher price in the beginning of the year." That's not how the world works. Therefore, some of the price development simply overtook even the most online and most here and now costing of our solutions.

That, of course, is sad to see. On the other hand, that's part of the game, and that's part of the nature that the customer needs to get the financing and the permitting finalized in those markets. As you can see, the longer we get with this ASP, the better we also get. It is also fair saying pricing is part of it, but it is probably the underlying mitigation. As we are rightly saying, I'm not impressed. We are saying we're not satisfied. That also is pretty clear from the letter to stakeholders in our annual report with the financial result. We are also encouraged and really positive over that we were able to execute 16.6 GW to our partners across the world.

Claus, it's a dual thing on the ASP. We can see if you're not in control and discipline, we can also see the result of that.

Claus Almer
Senior Equity Analyst, Nordea Markets

Sure. Let me try to ask in another way. Let's assume all competitors will see the same ASP as you do. Is there a given share of the projects that suddenly would not be doable? That's actually what I'm trying to figure out.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

You are asking me a very, very hypothetical question because you and I know that if that was the world, then I don't know how the world would look like, because it doesn't seem to be the case. You can see some of the challenges coming from your hypothetical. This is probably too far from reality than I even can think of an answer to that question, if you wouldn't mind. I can't because it still seems like there's somebody that has something that they want to sell or whatever.

I think what is challenging right now is if you are a customer that are stuck with an early off-take PPA because you did your PPA off-take first and then secured your permitting and probably wanted to source the turbine solution last, then of course you can be stuck. That's where we are as good partners, close partners. If you're a long-term partner, that's where we will lean towards each other and trying to find solutions to optimize the site, optimize the project, and potentially link it to further business. Because the customer don't want to be short of the solution and the electricity supply if he has sold the PPA at lower levels.

Claus Almer
Senior Equity Analyst, Nordea Markets

Okay. That makes sort of sense.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

If you ask a third time, you'll get the same answer now.

Claus Almer
Senior Equity Analyst, Nordea Markets

Totally different question, Henrik. In the past, you have been, you know, sometimes giving some color to the timing of the pipeline, short term. When we look at Q1, Q2, given this ASP trend and all these things you've been mentioning through this conference call, should we expect that things are now starting to normalize from an order intake point of view, or will you still need more time to get, you know, on the same page as the developers?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I think, Claus, we are actually super positive because and I was asked a little earlier today, we see generally the most of the energy supplying industry revising their P&Ls and outlooks upwards or even also for 2021, they've come out better because the output of all of the solutions are much more valuable today with the energy prices. That we believe will encourage as well the developers, as well as the permanent owners, and not least governments to accelerate. Because the only way to find a different balance and a different sort of parity with both energy prices and the solutions is actually to get more capacity done, and we believe that will happen.

I can't give you a quarter on it. We can see on the ongoing discussions, they have never been more intense, they have never been more often, Claus, but we can't tell you when they will come to fruition. One thing you can see from the year, actually it's good right now to be super disciplined, because if you're not, then you will have to work through a potentially negative backlog, and that doesn't suit anyone.

Claus Almer
Senior Equity Analyst, Nordea Markets

Sure. Makes sense. Just for clarification, Mathias, did you say the downturn was EUR 13 million or EUR 30 million? Just to be sure.

Mathias Dalsten
VP and Head of Investor Relations, Vestas Wind Systems

three, zero.

Claus Almer
Senior Equity Analyst, Nordea Markets

30. Okay. Thanks a lot. That was all for me.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Mark Freshney from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Mark Freshney
Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Henrik, I ask you this question every time in the last few quarters, and if I may, I'll ask it again. You know, your industry has done amazing things to lower the cost of energy and has made many investments in intangibles which you should get a return on. You know, I think many of the issues on low margins.

I mean, your margins have been falling for six years now. Presumably at some point, there needs to be a conversation not just about recovering input costs, and particularly logistics but about actually putting the margin on to recover the investments that Vestas and the major peers have made. Prices need to go up by more than just cost. Even more than just a margin on the additional cost, should I say. When do you think the industry might be able to enter those conversations with customers?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Mark, you know me well enough now. You can ask me many times and repeatedly. I won't answer on behalf of the industry because it's absolutely above and outside my control on answering that. On behalf of Vestas, we are doing diligently what we need to do. We have the handles. We are happy with the progress. We can see the progress of using these handles. As I also answered earlier on this call, there's no way we can do these things in anticipation or mitigation of something that has changed that rapidly throughout the last six quarters. That's, of course, something that we work with and feels pretty hard as a team.

When I say a team to see nearly 30,000 colleagues ending a year with disappointing financials after this incredible hard time in delivering it is, of course, hard for that. When we look at it, the disciplined pricing is the foundation for getting back to that profitability target. I think here, Mark, it's fair to say you can see we are disciplined, otherwise we wouldn't have let go of that level of orders to the industry. In reality here, that's a clear sign for us to say it doesn't have a future if you try to deliver something that is loss-making. That's, as I said again, here, we see a big upside for that. We see big upside also being in there early with partners.

You could see from both a co-development and an early stage development, that business is incredibly well off the ground. Therefore, there are several handles in getting back to the profitability levels you are saying, instead of only focusing on potentially a normal order intake in a quarter.

Mark Freshney
Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

If I may have a follow-up. I mean, some of your I mean, the U.S. PTC has, you know, clearly been delayed. I mean, some of your customers will be almost in rude health when they'll be looking at new merchant projects with three to four years payback or the very high levels of corporate PPAs that some of the industry specialists have been talking about. I mean, you know, when you and your sales team do DCFs just as the clients can do them, right? When you speak to CEOs at your customers, and I understand a lot has been escalated to CEO level, is there an understanding by those CEOs when they're looking at high single digit IRRs, that you would also need to be looking at high single digit EBIT margins? Is there that basic understanding in the conversations that you have?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I always think it's fairly dangerous if it's down to CEOs to fix orders and pricing margins. The understanding here, and I can promise you that because some of that went on last night, is that there is a general understanding of that deceleration and also availability of capacity has a price. We don't run away from that. When it comes to individual markets, you mentioned the U.S. here. The U.S. and the PTC, whenever Biden and the administration gets it broken down and potentially approved, I think country by country, we can see that is happening.

I think it's also fair to say here, if I was a CEO and I have a procurement organization, these guys are also allowed to do their jobs, otherwise it wouldn't work. I think as an industry, I think it's more that people have an individual break that says this is actually the walk away level. It still seems that there are different levels of walk away in the industry than the one we have. Therefore, we work diligently with that. We do everything we can to leverage our touch points with our partners. It sounds like we are sort of two against each other. It's actually trying to get more built, and that's why I'm super encouraged to see the progress in both onshore, offshore, and development, despite it hasn't come through in our financials in Q4.

Mark Freshney
Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Martin Wilkie from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Martin Wilkie
Global Head of Capital Goods and Research Analyst, Citi

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. It's Martin from Citi. Just a follow-up on the CapEx question and partly also linked to resolving some of these issues with logistics and so forth. The industry has obviously globalized and also massively outsourced over the last decade or so. As part of this sort of fixing that problem, obviously some of it is through pricing and elsewhere, but is there a view that some of the OEMs like yourselves need to sort of reintegrate some things that have previously been outsourced? And obviously, you've done, you know, sort of huge things on towers and blades and all these kind of things. Or, you know, do we think that that sort of model where you're sort of an assembler of some of these key components will still be the sort of prevalent model? That was my first question. Thanks.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Well, I think, Martin, by maturing as an industry, we have seen that in comparable industries. Anders Nielsen, our CTO, which many of you met in the capital markets, that he comes from the telecom and trucking and been spending most of his working life in that. They managed to both do modularization and also therefore connecting partners in various degrees closer to you. I think that's part of the future in this industry. Of course, that works along the same lines that industries that are maturing, it gets better into the whole supply chain, but they probably also get at the point in time where they trust each other enough to work along those lines.

It's because the discipline has also been built that the pricing is mature. I think, Martin, we are in with that scalability and whatever forecast and estimation you're making for the next decade, you cannot come outside the gray area we shared with you in the capital markets. That scalability has to come on behalf of the industry, but it also has to be the upside for partners working closely with us. The answer is, yes, it has to mature, and it has to mature quicker than slower, Martin.

Martin Wilkie
Global Head of Capital Goods and Research Analyst, Citi

Thanks. That's helpful. The second question was sort of related to that as well, is that it looks like the sort of national or local manufacturing provisions could increase in the future, and particularly if the proposed PTC goes through in the U.S., there may be a need to assemble more locally than perhaps there has been in the past. Would that have a big impact on how you run the business in North America if that was to be passed in that way? Or does the sort of capacity and supply chain and so forth already exist to manage that sort of local content requirement?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I think, Martin, it's probably been a development over the last 10 years anyway. If you look at where we have localized over the last 10 years, you saw, you follow it when we also shared with you how we did in Latin America and went into Brazil, exactly the similar we will be doing. That's where I will say you can always say, "Oh, that's a blame to the tariffs, or there's the blame to the incentive locally." There's also the other part. As the technology grows, it becomes less and less transportable across the world. That's also why part of the localization has to happen closer or in country or continents where you're putting the solutions up.

I think that one in the short term it will be a little bit of a discussion point, but in the long term, you know, we have factories, we have a lot of colleagues in the U.S. Therefore, by agreeing to a Build Back Better and a PTC in the U.S. would only accelerate that development, we believe, at least in the U.S.

Martin Wilkie
Global Head of Capital Goods and Research Analyst, Citi

Great. Thank you very much.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

If we could then, as operator, have the last question.

Operator

Thank you. The last question comes from John Olaisen from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

John Olaisen
Head of Research, ABG Sundal Collier

Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. I realize it's probably too early to give some indications for 2023, but in order to help me understand the dynamics a little bit, would it be possible to give me some guideline of when do you expect to get visibility for 2023? Or in other words, when do we need to see supply chain issues diminishing or improving prices to start hoping for more normal or normalized markets in 2023?

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

John, you're absolutely right.

John Olaisen
Head of Research, ABG Sundal Collier

When do you think you? Yeah.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

John, you're absolutely right. We won't give any indication of 2023 yet. I think we're executing on 2022. We are building any forecast of 2023 throughout the year, as you would appreciate. As we have said here, we don't foresee an ease of the current environment throughout 2022. Instead of sitting and hoping on an ease, we get into the actuals and the practical one and execute on that one. Then when we see something changes, and that still can be for either the better or even for the worse, then we will tell you that as well. As an industry, I will leave the rest to the entire industry to deal with. For investors, we are ready for 2022.

John Olaisen
Head of Research, ABG Sundal Collier

Yeah. My question wasn't actually on what, how do you see the market 2023 now. It's more, when will you get some indication of how 2023 will look like? Do we have to wait? Do you have to wait till Christmas before you know how or get some better indication of how 2023 will look? How short is the lead time on your visibility? Most general.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

I think, John, our lead time is normally several quarters out. If you look at that, we have a backlog of EUR 18.1 billion. We are not without visibility in doing that. I'm also here saying for that, and we can have that, and we can have conversations over it. From an industry point of view and from a competitive point of view, that will not be advisable to start guiding beyond the quarters. You are basically seeing what challenges we had guiding within 2021, with just the challenges we have had and the instability we have had. We talk about 2023 when we get to that. Now it's about 2022.

John Olaisen
Head of Research, ABG Sundal Collier

Thank you and good luck. Thank you.

Henrik Andersen
Group President and CEO, Vestas Wind Systems

Thank you so much. With that, thank you so much for today. We really look forward to see you over the coming days. With that, I'm sure we will have further conversations around the details of our full year 2021. Thank you, guys.

Mathias Dalsten
VP and Head of Investor Relations, Vestas Wind Systems

Thank you.

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