Conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Anja Siehler, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Moira, and also a very warm welcome from the Nordex team. Thank you for joining the H1 2024 Nordex conference call. As always, we ask you to take notice of our safe harbor statements. With me are our CEO, José Luis Blanco, our CFO, Ilya Hartmann, and our CSO, Patxi Landa, who will lead you through the presentation. Afterwards, we will open the floor for your questions. Just a small housekeeping topic. You might have seen that we added some appendix slides in the presentation, giving you a broader breakdown of the key operational and financial KPIs. These are for informational purposes only and are not part of today's presentation. Now, I would like to hand over to our CEO, José Luis. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the introduction, Anja. I would like, as well, to welcome all of you on behalf of, the entire management board. As always, I would like to start with our, executive summary for the first half of 2024. In the first, half of 2024, we secured an order intake of, 3.4 GW, up from 2.6 GW in the first half of 2023. The pricing has been stable, and our order intake ASP stands at EUR 0.89 million per MW, the same level as last year. Installations picked up since, Q1 2024, with, 1.9 GW in the Q2.
As a result, the total installations reached 3 GW in the first half of the year, roughly the same level compared to the previous year. We continue to expect higher installation run rates during the second half of the year, similar to previous years. Regarding our financial performance, first half and Q2 developed according to plan, with gross margins of 19.5%, stable now and expected for the quarters ahead. We achieved an EBITDA margin of 3.4% in the first half, which is a substantial improvement over the last year. Within this year, the EBITDA margin has remained quite stable, with quarter two margin reported as 3.5%. This is, again, in line with our communication during the last call.
On the liquidity side, we were able to improve liquidity since the last quarter and have closed the quarter with a healthy level of EUR 827 million. On the strategic part, we have finalized our U.S. re-entry plan, with first, reactivating our nacelle and drivetrain production facilities in West Branch, Iowa. Second, we recently launched our U.S. tailored turbine, Nordex N169/5.X. The new turbine will be a better fit for grid-constrained areas and will put us at par with the other market participants in the U.S. market. Lastly, given our stable H1 performance and the visibility we have today, we have decided to tighten our guidance to the upper end of the corridor, namely 3%-4% EBITDA margin.
And last, we remain on track to achieving our midterm 8% EBITDA margin, subject to a stable market environment and continuing price discipline in the industry, as well as market growth. Moving to the slide number 5, let me provide you a summary of how we see it. This slide provides an overview of the drivers and projected onshore capacity additions based on external forecast. As you can see, both our core regions, Americas and EMEA, are expected to experience healthy growth in the coming years on the back of unusual long-term demand drivers. Despite some recent political developments in some markets, we believe the positive trends and developments in EMEA and Americas outweigh the negative ones on the whole. For example, fantastic performance on Germany is in the permitting rules and increasing volume in auctions, as well as kick-start of the onshore demand in UK after the elections. And with this introduction, I would like to hand over to Patxi for market and order intake discussions.
Thank you, José Luis. On the first half of 2024, order intake grew by 27% to 3.4 GW. This robust increase was mainly driven by the strong order intake in Q1. Out of total orders from 17 different countries, largest orders were booked in Germany, but also South Africa, Lithuania, and Turkey. Pricing continued to remain stable. ASP stands at 0.89 million EUR per MW, which is similar to last year. For the full year, we continue to expect a good order momentum in the second half of the year, with stable pricing, assuming continued pricing discipline in the market. Moving on to the next slide. Service revenues grew by 12% from EUR 305 million in the first half of 2023 to EUR 343 million in the first half of 2024.
Service EBIT margin increased year-on-year from 13.2% to 15.3%, and also recorded a slight uptick quarter-over-quarter. We expect the revenues to keep increasing at a healthy pace, driven by an increase in order book, with longer tenors and increased installation activities. On the margin side, we expect a recovery in the next two years, mainly driven by the increase of the share of the Delta platform in our service fleet. Average availability of the fleet was stable at 97%. Moving on to the next page. Turbine order book increased by 8% to EUR 6.9 billion during the first half of the year, on the back of improving order intake. Out of this order book, majority of orders will be installed in Europe, followed by the Americas and the rest of the world. On the service side, order book increased by 21% and stood at EUR 4.1 billion, for a combined order book of EUR 11 billion at the end of June. Now I'd like to hand over to Ilya for the financials.
Thank you, Patxi. As always, I will guide us through our latest financial figures, starting with the income statement. In H1, sales increased by 25%, compared to the previous year period. In total, sales of EUR 3.4 billion in this first half. Now, that was driven by higher activity levels in both installations and supply chain. Gross margin reached 19.5% at the end of June 2024, compared to 10.7% in H1 of the previous year. For the fourth consecutive quarter, we have now seen a stable development of our gross margins. As a result, we achieved an absolute EBITDA of EUR 118 million in the first half year, compared to -EUR 114 million in the previous year period.
That translates into a margin improvement from -4.2 in H1 last year to +3.4% in the first six months of this year. On a quarterly basis, absolute EBITDA was EUR 66 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 3.5% in the Q2, in line with our indications during the last call. With continued stability in our costs and pricing, we maintain our stance of a more stable margin profile for the rest of the year. With this, let us jump to the balance sheet. The overall structure remains in substance unchanged when compared to year-end 2023. We ended the Q2, 2024, with a cash level of EUR 747 million, up by around EUR 80 million from last quarter.
In addition, we have a cash facility of EUR 80 million, which brings our overall liquidity levels to around EUR 827 million at the end of H1. While our liquidity levels have slightly increased versus Q1, it continues to be influenced by higher but stable working capital as we prepare for high activity levels in the remaining quarters of the year. That brings me to the next slide, the working capital. The working capital ratio stood at -7.4%, in absolute numbers, minus EUR 400 million, sorry, EUR 530 million at the end of the Q2, fully in line with our expectations and operational activities. We expect working capital to improve in line with the acceleration of our activity levels in the second half of this year.
To summarize, for 2024, we continue to expect a working capital ratio below -9%. And on the next slide, we go to the cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities before net working capital stood at EUR 144 million. This very much reflects the more stable margin profile of our orders, and is also evidence that our operational performance has further improved. In preparation, again, for the high activity levels in the second half and the resulting changes in working capital, cash flow from operating activities ended at around -EUR 72 million. There's little to mention about the cash flow from investing activities, which totaled around minus eighty-eight million euros, a slightly higher level compared to the previous year period, reflecting the execution of our investment priorities in line with our planning.
When looking at the quarterly development, it is worth to highlight that the business generated a positive free cash flow of EUR 94 million in the Q2, and we expect this trend to continue in the second half of this year. With that, let's move on to the CapEx slide. CapEx spendings of around EUR 70 million in the first half, compared to around EUR 50 million in H1 of 2023. The focus, again, of our investments reflects the execution of our internal investment program. Main priorities were the investments into blade and nacelle production facilities and tooling for installations and transport, including the reactivation of the Iowa plant in the US and the development of the new turbine type for the United States.
We expect H2 to see a higher level of total investments and confirm the EUR 175 million of CapEx guidance for this year. That brings me to my final slide here, which is the capital structure. Net cash levels slightly improved to around EUR 446 million compared to the end of the Q1, but decreased compared to year-end 2023. As mentioned before and already indicated in our last call, this development reflects our higher working capital levels as we prepare the company for high installation run rates in Q3 and Q4. Let's remind us, being a project company, working capital swings during quarters is part of the typical business cycle and has a typical seasonality. Equity ratio stood at nearly 18% and remains on a similar level compared to the end of last year. With those statements, I hand it back to José Luis, who will guide you through our operational performance in the first six months.
Thank you, Ilya. Moving to the operations, after a weak installation quarter in the Q1 of this year, activity level picked up, and we were able to install nearly 2 GW, representing 365 turbines in the Q2 of 2023. In total, in the first half of the year, we installed 592 turbines, leading to a total of 3 GW of installations. Most of the installations took place in Europe, followed by Latin America. We continue to expect higher installation run rate for the second half of the year, in line with our past years. On the production side, both turbine assembly and blade production increased by 5% in the first half of 2024 compared to the prior year's level.
Overall, we assembled 3,023 megawatts in the first half and produced 2,333 blade sets. Compared to the first half of 2023, the share of our soft production in blades decreased and stood at 73% in the first half of 2024, compared to 77% in the first half of 2023. I said two hundred, two thousand three hundred and thirty-three sets? No, it's two thousand three hundred and thirty-three blades, blade sets. Moving to the next page, talking about the outlook. Given the strong start into the year and the stable performance quarter-on-quarter, we have decided to tighten the EBITDA margin corridor to the upper end of the range. We now expect an EBITDA margin of 3%-4%, up from our initial guidance of 2%-4%. Sales expectations, CapEx guidance, and working capital ratio remain unchanged. Now I will handing over to Anja to open Q&A.
Thank you, gentlemen, for leading us through the presentation. I would like to hand over to Moira, to the operator, to open the Q&A session. Please go ahead, Moira.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. We kindly ask you to limit yourself to three questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from John Kim from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's John from Deutsche. Thanks for the opportunity. Can you talk to us about how the legacy backlog is progressing? I think the last time we spoke, we were looking for this to deliver mostly in 2020, this fiscal year. I'm wondering if that's the case in Q2. And does your 3%-4% guide for the year have a different view on how the backlog goes through this year versus the start of the year? Thanks.
No, thank you for the question. Yes, that is the plan. I think the execution of the backlog is slightly more back-ended, but very much stable during the whole year. And yes, we expect the big majority of those legacy orders to be completed in this calendar year, yes.
Okay. A second question. Percentage of completion or POC revenues, about 80% in your H1 numbers, that seems a bit high. If I think about your full year rev guide and your production figure or installation figures, is it fair to say that POC will be smaller in your H2 numbers on a percentage basis?
I think we are gonna have more activity in the second half in all areas of the company, not sure if we can, if we have that detail on the, but maybe, yeah.
Yeah, I would say, I think probably especially industrial activity and manufacturing will not be as backloaded as it was last year.
Yeah.
So that stick that we. It will be back on, back-end loaded, but not as much. So the activity in H2, where we recognize revenue and margin, will not be as such a steep step up as it was in, for example, the previous year.
Okay. Thanks very much.
The next question is from Vivek Midha from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, everyone, and good afternoon. So my first question is just a bit of a follow-up on the last one. You commented that installations in the second half should be similar year-on-year. Second half last year was very busy. I believe you had a slippage of around 100 turbines in Q4. So how comfortable are you with your ability to execute well on that high level of activity in the second half? Thank you.
We are, I will say, as the operations side of the company has improved a lot, and the major roadblocks that we had in previous year are easing. I think we are better equipped to deal with the activity level of the second half. So our plan is, I would say, is robust.
The next question is from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions as well. I've got three. So one, I'd like to just quickly do a quick discussion on the regulatory environment, both in the U.S. and in Europe. I mean, obviously, you must already been doing some of your homework in the U.S., potentially with, with the Trump win over there, and Republicans coming around, the announcement of his VP, J.D. Vance, being a bit noisy around, yeah, being rather negative on wind overall. So what's kind of your view if Trump comes around? What are some of the key changes that we could potentially see there? Because, I mean, historically, Trump, he did extend the PTC and the ITC when he was president, so, I mean, could it mean that we could see them getting rid of the manufacturing credits, but keeping the PTC, ITC?
What's, what's kind of the scenarios that you're working with there? And then on the regulatory environment in Europe, what are you seeing there? I mean, the announcement of the wind power package, it's already almost a year old. I think the European Commission announced it back in October, and we haven't heard anything else around it. So I'm just wondering what is being done in Europe at the moment. If you have any view there, that would be great. That's my first question. Thanks.
Thank you, Constantin, for the question. I think regarding US, of course, we did talk to many stakeholders before taking the decision to reopen our facilities and invest in an American product. We are reasonably convinced that regardless the results of presidential election in US, we know onshore will not dramatically change. I heard candidate and former President Trump talking about wind offshore, but I didn't hear much him about wind onshore. Second, most of the wind onshore expected activity, the big majority is in Republican states. So, I, you know, you know, we, we, we don't have a crystal ball there, but we are quite confident because the economics of wind onshore are quite robust in US.
Expected demand growth driven by artificial intelligence and data centers and so on are quite strong. The commissioning plan for coal are ongoing, so the country needs to substitute this huge amount of energy that is gonna be needed, and wind onshore is quite competitive solution. So we are, I would say, moderately optimistic that no big change is gonna happen in US. But of course, we don't know. Regarding Europe, I would say I think it is great that the new European elections bring a parliament that very much there is no substantial change about European wind targets.
So the political parties supporting the, the commission are very much unchanged, and, and this is, stability, so we expect the policy, the policy to continue. And, and, you know, many things, have happened, last year, especially in the implementation of several policies, especially in, in Germany, thanks to the implementation of, of some of those, policies, like overarching and overriding public interest, we see now huge amount of that were adopted, firstly, by Germany. We see Germany producing, huge amount of, permitting projects, and we see the auctions with, very good volume, and we are participating on, in those auctions and growing with the, with the market, there.
So let's see, once the new commission starts to work, but I wouldn't expect any change in the European targets. Now, in discussion is you know many things about resilient criteria for supply chain, prequalification criteria for participants in the public tenders, and so on. And is expected as well a market reform, but not radical changes are expected. As in the positive side, UK and looks like France is gonna be supported as well for deployment of renewables. So we don't see any downside or negative change in the political arena in Europe.
Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. Then if we could quickly just talk about the service margins. I mean, obviously, you're getting quite a bit of scale now at 40 GW in the portfolio. When you look at the current backlog that you have, what kind of margin trajectory could we be expecting here into next year?
I think we communicated in previous call, and we keep with the same view long term, that over the next, you know, 2.5 years, we should come back to the previous margins on the service business. And the drivers for that is more volume, majority of the volume with Delta products, majority of the volume in geographies where we have a big service network, and where you can harvest the synergies on the volume.
That makes sense. Thanks. And then lastly, just, you know, maintenance question here on warranty, and, you know, if you look at your entire fleet, I think this entire situation with the blade that fell off the turbine of GE offshore, which seems to be a serial issue, again, you know, obviously caused some negative sentiment in the market, again, around reputational risk. When you look at the Delta4000 range today or, you know, maybe in any of your previous models, is there anything at all that you, you highlight or that potentially you've seen as a potential risk there in terms of components or nothing, really?
I think, I think we just passed the infancy mistakes of a new platform, and we are quite equipped with this platform. What I can share with you, without going into much details, that the non-quality cost that we have in this platform is lower than in legacy platforms. So far, so good. So I think we don't see any major issues in this Delta4000 platform currently. And that's a great relief because it's the big majority of the volume of the company. And out of the legacy platforms that the company is selling, majority are N117 and N131, which have a very good track record as well. So we are quite happy with the situation of our Delta4000 and Gamma performance.
Okay. That's great. Thanks for the update.
The next question is from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, on price discipline, I noticed that you've stressed price discipline as a condition for, you know, the second half. You're assuming that continues. You've also stressed it as a prerequisite to your 8% midterm target. I mean, could you maybe talk about how you're seeing current conditions for pipeline? Are you seeing any differences in developed versus developing markets in terms of price pressure? And yeah, any, I guess, nuance in that respect will be helpful. Thank you. That's the first question.
Thank you for your question. We are quite pleased actually with the situation with respect to pricing. We see that for the most part, I would say in all of the markets, discipline is kept, that we are behaving very rationally as the competitors and setting the reasonable price level that deliver the margins that we need to get to the midterm profitability target. So I would say, I would state that we have a stable pricing, that we are satisfied with how the competitive landscape is in most of the markets, is going on at this point in time.
... Very good. And if we maybe just move to the U.S. market, I mean, just, I get now with the new turbine, you're effectively on a level footing now with the main competitors there. I mean, how quickly are you looking at order growth, and by when might we see, you know, you back at full capacity and also at high capacity utilization in the U.S.?
Yeah, as we speak, we are entertaining commercial discussions with projects, with customers. Given the sales cycle timeline that you can ordinarily expect from projects, I wouldn't rule out to get some deals in 2024, but I wouldn't expect them, and I would expect the deal flow starting already in 2025. And hence, depending also on the product line that we sell, because let's not forget that the current product portfolio fits some niche segments in the market as well, we may see the flow of those projects into the P&L of 2026 already. But we expect, to your question, the deal flow starting in 2025, next year.
Thank you. My last question, just on the margin progression through the second half, and I'm just wondering around the revised guidance. I mean, are you comfortable with a steady margin through the second half, or you do expect to see further incremental improvements as we go through the second half, given higher volume, or is the legacy issue going to impact that?
I would say, the legacy projects are more back-ended, slightly, a little bit more activity in legacy projects in the second half. The non-legacy projects, we are quite happy. I mean, we are happy with the results, we are happy with the stability, and we should expect only slight improvements in the second half.
Thank you.
The next question is from Ben Heelan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, afternoon, guys. Thanks for the question. I just wanted to get a bit more color from you in terms of the cost environment and, you know, the key buckets of cost and how you've seen them progress, and if you have any views on that into the second half of the year. And then a follow-up is it on some of these margin comments, just how should we think about the timeline to getting to that 8% EBITDA margin, and how you are thinking about that after a fairly solid H1? Thank you.
Thank you very much for the question, Ben. I think the cost environment, I would say, like in the previous call, we see stabilization in global supply chains. We see global supply chains more delivering on time, which was not the case last year and a few years and for many years. And we still see inflation in the western world, due to wages, due to services inflation. But on all in all, I would say we are quite quite positive that the margins expected can be can be delivered. So so we we we provide for for inflation.
We expect the inflation in the western world to stay within the expectations, and we expect the international cost base to remain stable and delivering on quality and on time. So from that point of view, positive. I think we think we see stability, better stability than in the previous quarter, and of course, again, changed compared to the previous years. On the margin timeline to the 8%, I mean, the prerequisites have not changed. I mean, we need... we think we can grow with the market, so if the market picks up in Europe and we keep market share, this is a big lever for profitability improvement. We don't see reason why we should not do that.
Of course, the volume in North America plays a big role in growing the company above and beyond this 8 GW per year. The second prerequisite, as we always mention, is cost stability, which we see it now, and margin stability. So if the price is stable, the cost is stable, we have more volume to manage, this will improve profitability, combined as well with the plan to improve profitability of the service business over time. So same prerequisites, I would say. The key driver is market growth. Market growth in Europe, and recovering of the market share that we used to have in North America... and as long as this materializes, we will deliver.
Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question is from Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the presentation. Couple of questions, please. The first one is going back to this margin evolution point. So typically, in the past, as we went through the financial year, you would experience higher volume, you would get the benefit of operational leverage, and you would have a shape of margin that sizably improves. I'm trying to understand why the margin is as flat as it is. Is that more just the distribution of legacy assets, or is it that there's an element of conservatism in here? Just trying to get a feel for what are you actually assuming for the second half of the year. Because it feels, given that first half performance you've just done, the second half does feel like it's conservative. And then the second question I wanted to ask is: if you think about your markets, that you operate in, Latin America's been pretty quiet relative to your history. So I just wondered if you could just give us, like, a feel for if you look at your pipeline, look at the second half of the year, where, which markets do you expect the most activity, and when would you see, in particular in LatAm, a potential turnaround in volume?
Mm-hmm. No, thank you very much, Ajay. The first question, how can I express it? I would say a combination of the two. So, a combination of the two, comments that you made, a little bit more backloaded, legacy issues. And why not? You know, let's not overpromise and underdeliver. So, you know, let's make sure that how things go, but we are comfortable with the second half. And regarding the markets, first, Latin America is low, and Patxi will explain more in detail. But despite Latin America being low, the overall volume is expected to be good, and the overall margin is expected to be good. There is a positive side of a negative news, that you concentrate the volume in low risk, high profit margins.
Which is mainly Europe. That will continue to be the majority of our activity looking forward, but not only, also North America. We are very active in Canada, very successful there. Picking up in the US as we starting next year already, as we explained before, but also South Africa, Australia, and other important markets where we are gonna have a position. With respect to your specific question on LatAm, it is true that the markets are down. Mainly 80% of the continent is Brazil, and Brazil is very low at this point in time. We have not changed the view that we communicated to you in previous calls, where we see the electricity prices being really low, activity being extremely low at this point in time. We continue to have the view that midterm, the market will pick up, but one quarter further down the line, we cannot confirm that we see the market coming back. We will expect that to happen, but it's not happening at this point in time.
May I have one follow-up? Is it okay?
Yes, please.
It. I also look at the order intake this first half of the year, and it's very strong, right? And it makes me wonder how much of it is just seasonality or effects over the course of the year. So would you expect a weaker order intake in Q3 to partially offset some of that strong performance in Q1 and Q2? Or, you know, we should see continued strength in the second half as you see the pipeline. You know, typically, I think maybe volume growth is sort of 7%-9% was thrown, I think, by Vestas, for this year, for the industry. Does that feel like the right sort of order of magnitude in terms of a market, or would you be more pessimistic?
I think what we can share with you is that from an order perspective, we see a strong second half of the year. Probably what we could share is that we see a stronger second half than the first half that we have seen, and that's as far as we can share with you at this point in time.
Well, okay. Thank you very much. That's very helpful.
Thank you.
The next question is from Anis Zgaya from ODDO . Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions. So the first one is on volumes, installations, on installations volumes for Q3 and Q4. I'm just wondering if you could give us more granularity on your expectations for volumes for the next two quarters. And my second question is on the ENGIE project issues in the U.S. Is there any news or update to share regarding this topic? Thank you.
Well, thank you for the questions. Regarding installations, we don't guide quarterly evolution or annual, annual targets, but I can share with you is the record quarter expected in the year is Q3, and Q4 slightly lower than Q3, which is good, because usually the closer you go to the winter, the more, the more difficult is to install. So we are, I would say reasonably happy with the installation profile and with the risk of the installation profile. Let's see if we don't see delays, hopefully, hopefully not to the magnitude that we had last year. And regarding ENGIE, not much to comment at this point, other than, you know, we are discussing, and this is how far as we can go. And as we mentioned in the previous call, that we have provided for in the numbers and in the guidance.
We have a follow-up question from
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I am sorry, sir.
Go ahead, please. Please.
We have a follow-up question from John Kim from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. It looks like you had very strong order intake growth and service in Q3. I was wondering if you could just comment on that?
That's mainly order intake driven, duration of the service contract associated with the order intake. Pricing, because, I mean, in the markets what we operate, there is a substantial inflation in the costing of the services which translate to the price of the services, activity and renewal rate. I don't think you should expect this growth in the future. But definitely, the service business has a double digit, low double digit growth long term, and this is how we see it. We see a low double digit growth long term with, as mentioned, the profitability improvement that we expect, going back to normal in two, two and a half years.
Great. And as a quick follow-up, can you give us a sense on the average length of contract in the backlog and how that would have changed over the last three years?
Oh, I don't. I fear I don't have that detailed data with you, but more than happy that either myself or my IR team reach back to you.
Okay
And give you this, this information.
Thanks very much.
Any further questions, please press star and one. The next question is from Togo Jensen from Carnegie Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Togo Jensen, Carnegie here. A question on US. You are now putting up production over there, and you're alluding to that you expect to go back, or hope to go back to where you previously were in terms of market share. Can you please, you maybe just remind us what where have you been in the US market in terms of market share? And what is, so to say, the threshold for success, either in terms of market share or in terms of absolute installations in the US market, once you get up and running, in order to say that it has been a success to step into the U.S.? That's the first question.
Yeah.
The second question, could you and that's more household, where are you hovering around right now in terms of warranty provisions on your platform now compared to, let's say, maybe a year or even two years, two years ago? Thanks.
Okay. So regarding the, I will take the first question together with Patxi, and, and you hear the second. I mean, traditionally, US, we deliver from 12 to 18, to 18% market share. We don't have the expectations to have a 40% market share like we have in Europe, in US, to be clear. So, for us, for us, you know, in US, we are planning to be the, the third supplier, or we are targeting to be the third, not the first, not the second. And, and, and, going back to the previous market share that we used to have from, we used to have from 12 to 18%, market share, that will be, for us, success. The more we approach the 20%, the more successful, the more we go to the lower end, the less happy and successful.
The market is expecting that, too. When talking to customers, this is a current duopoly, and a third player is wanted and needed, and we are that player. We were that player in the past with a significant market share. As José Luis was previously mentioned, the product that we have recently announced fits perfectly well to the U.S. We have the customer relationships. It will not take us too long to be back where we were in the market.
Where do you actually see the market in terms of installations, let's say maybe not this year, but in 2, 5-6?
We take the Wood Mackenzie assumption.
And bear in mind that the dynamics are different, that the cycles right now are much longer. It's not the past boom and bust cycle where decisions, investment decisions were taken, and there was some pressure to take them. I think the market is taking decisions with moderate mid to long term view. So, so we may see the numbers that, that Woodmac is publishing, or we may even see some delays in the market, you know? So I think we are a little, our expectations on the markets for the next two years are either the market is gonna develop moderately, we would say. Now, what numbers are finally there, but we can refer and go back to the Woodmac published ones.
Right.
On the provisions, on the, oh, sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, just on the warranty provisions, I was just reminding. Yeah.
Yep, yeah, it's on that list. We'll go get into that, Zagaia . When it comes to warranty provisions, José Luis spoke a bit about the technology, and especially the Delta 4000 platform, which is now the workhorse in all its variants. So, there is nothing special to report there. For the rest, we continue to provide for, in this case, increasing provisions as the activity levels continue to grow. We still have to record or have recorded some of these for delays to that installation catch up we discussed earlier on the call. Then we are updating some of our cost assumptions, especially in some markets and customers, the US and elsewhere. But again, that is all into that updated and upgraded margin guidance for the full year and all our numbers. So there is nothing so specific that sticks out as especially a new topic.
Where is the level in relative terms to sales, for instance?
Say again?
Where is the actual level of warranty provisions relative to sales in terms of percentage?
We have done a jump in that H1 now again. I think if you, if you only look at the, at the, at H1, I think we're at the level of 5, 5.2 or so. Of course, it's a bit lumpy, so typically we do this on annual values. Last year was 3.2, 3.3. I mean, it's early to say, but I would expect over the year that this is a very similar number as we've seen that in the past, on total sales.
Understood. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
For any further questions, please press star and one. So as there are no further questions, I would like to hand over to José Luis for his final remarks.
Thank you very much. So the key takeaways from our view of the market is first, that we see a stable operating environment, continuing stable selling price and largely a stable supply chains, and this is great. Second, we are making progress in rebuilding our market position in the U.S., and we expect to harvest as well success in Canada, as well, maintaining market position in Europe. The first half of this year continued to show a stable margin profile, building confidence in the sustainability of the margin recovery of Nordex. Free cash flow turned positive in the Q2 and is likely to remain positive in the second half of the year. Plus, our margin guidance for 2024, targeted to the upper end and of our mid-term strategic margin target of 8% remains in place, as always, subject to a stabilized environment and market growth in the markets where we operate. With this, I will thank all of you for your participation in the call, wish you a nice afternoon and a nice summer break.