Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to our Analyst and Investor Call this afternoon. Our CEO, José Luis Blanco, our CFO, Ilya Hartmann, and our CSO, Patxi Landa, will guide you through our slide deck. In the Q&A session, I would like to ask you to limit yourself up to three questions, please. And now, I would like to hand over to our CEO, José Luis. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the introduction, Felix. I would like, as well, to welcome you on behalf of the entire board, Patxi Landa, Ilya Hartmann, here with me today, guiding you through our presentation and answering your questions later. For today, we have prepared our usual presentation deck. Going to the introduction, as usual, with the executive summary for the first quarters of 2023. Our project execution in the third quarter was sequentially better than the second quarter, but still slightly behind our internal expectations. We expect to catch up and complete even higher activity levels in the last quarter of the year, which should also support the improvement in our underlying margins.
In the third quarter, we booked 2.3 GW of new orders, which was an increase of fifty-eight percent compared to the third quarter of the year before, largely on the back of a strong performance in Europe and despite facing delays in non-European markets. The pricing and margins of these orders continue to be stable. In the first nine months, our order intake increased to 4.9 GW, exceeding the 4.5 GW of last year, with generally stable selling prices. Our order pipeline in Europe remains strong. However, let me also note that we continue to face delays in our international order pipeline, which could likely make our installation schedule next year more back-end loaded, like this year, which increases our general risk profile, as you can imagine.
In addition, we are also happy to report that the German market is developing well, although we see a lot of early-stage delays in not only project permitting, but also transportation permits. Going forward, this could impact project execution, but we hope that this will be addressed in time by relevant authorities and stakeholders. Our revenues rose from EUR 3.9 billion by 15% to EUR 4.5 billion by the end of September. At the same time, our gross margin also increased to 18.3% in the third quarter, leading to an improved gross margin for the first three quarters of 13.6%. We generally expect further positive developments of the gross margin, with a higher share of revenues coming from better quality orders.
Although, let me also point out that financial stability of some key suppliers in supply chain could also increase the overall cost, which is impacting margins and could also impact our margins in the future. Our EBITDA level improved, as indicated in the last quarter, further in the third quarter to EUR 48 million, representing an EBITDA margin of nearly 3%. Compared to our EBITDA margin of -9.4% in the first quarter and 0% in the second quarter, this is an step ahead. This was mainly possible due to higher volume and better underlying margins in the orders in the third quarter. Consequently, we now show an EBITDA margin of -1.5% in the first three quarters of the year, and expect this continued improvement in our underlying margins going forward.
Our working capital was stable at -10.2%. Our installations increased in the third quarter to 2.4 GW, reaching 5.5 GW in the first three quarters of the year. And finally, I would like to confirm our guidance for 2023 and our midterm strategic EBITDA margin of 8%. And with this, I would like to hand over to Patxi for markets and order intake.
Thank you very much, José Luis. As mentioned, looking at the orders, we closed 2.3 GW of new turbine contracts in Q3, for a total of 4.9 GW of new contracts in the first nine months of the year, up 11% with respect to the same period in 2022. 83% of the orders came from Europe, and 17% from the Americas. The largest orders in the quarter came from Türkiye, Chile, Germany, Canada, and Spain. ASP increased to EUR 0.85 million per megawatt in the first nine months of the year, up from EUR 0.82 million per megawatt in the same period last year.
Service sales amounted to 10.8% of group sales in the first nine months, with EUR 483 million, up 21% with respect to last year, and an EBIT margin of 13.9%. The fleet under contract stands at 33 GW, with an average availability of 97%. Turbine order backlog grew 2% to EUR 6.7 billion at the end of September, and service order backlog grew 14% to EUR 3.6 billion, for a combined order backlog of EUR 10.2 billion at the end of Q3. With this, I give it back to you, Ilya .
Thanks, Patxi. Good afternoon also from my side, and I would now like to guide us through the latest financial figures, starting with the income statement. As mentioned before, we had a soft start into the year. However, in line with our previous calls, our sales performance has been consistently improving every quarter since. So as a result, we recorded total sales of around EUR 4.5 billion, compared to EUR 3.9 billion at Q3 2022. Year-on-year, this is an increase of about 16%. Key drivers were the substantially higher installation levels. We were up 54% in the first nine months when compared to same period last year. So as also indicated in our H1 call, our gross margins improved again, and now in the third quarter as well.
Gross margin stood at 18.3% for the quarter, compared to 10.7% at the end of H1, as the extra cost of delays from last year recede. The improvement is also down to the fact that we have better priced orders now starting to flow through our financials. So as a result of this, we generated a positive EBITDA of EUR 48 million in Q3, after reaching breakeven EBITDA in Q2. And going forward, we continue to expect improvement in the underlying margins. So with this, let's move to the balance sheet. The overall structure of our balance sheet remains essentially unchanged, with a liquidity level of EUR 732 million at the end of last quarter.
In a breakdown, cash stood at EUR 642 million, and if we add to this our cash facility of around EUR 90 million, that gets you to the total liquidity amount I mentioned. At the end of Q3, our net cash position stood at EUR 344 million, and the equity ratio at roughly 19%. Now to the working capital. Working capital ratio continues to be relatively tight, at -9.2% at the end of Q3. In absolute numbers, that was -EUR 639 million. Working capital was driven by an increase in payables, reflecting our very high operational activities during the quarter. With this, the working capital ratio remains below our guided number, which is below 9%, below -9%, apologies, for the current year.
We continue to expect a tighter working capital also for the last quarter. That ties into the cash flow slide. As we see on the slide, cash flow from operating activities still reflect the softer margin levels we have seen in the first nine months. However, we can also see a substantial improvement compared to last year. This is driven by continuously improving margins, as mentioned, and again, an even tighter working capital management. Cash flow from investing activities stood at around -EUR 95 million. This is largely at the previous year level, and it reflects the execution of our investment program as we had planned for. Worth to mention, probably, that we nearly reached breakeven free cash flow, roughly -EUR 2 million in the quarter. Again, resulting from the same operational performance improvements that were mentioned at the beginning of the call by José Luis.
And then finally, the cash flow from financing activities, roughly EUR 300 million, are basically on the same level as we reported in our last call. Key source were the inflows from our Green Convertible Bond in April this year. And that gets me to the investment slide. Mentioned it a few moments ago, total investments are around EUR 83 million in the first nine months of the year. That's below the nine-month period of last year, where we stood at around EUR 125 million. However, the lower level we have spent in the first nine months is in line with our internal planning for such a backloaded year. So we expect to catch up in the capital rate, in the CapEx rate in the last weeks of this year.
Closing on this one, I get to my last slide, that is the capital structure. As also mentioned earlier, net cash level at the end of Q3 at around EUR 344 million, and then again, the equity ratio around 90%. That is probably an appropriate moment to remind us that both the debt to equity swap, as well as the convertible bond, were a good and timely instruments to further strengthen our financial position in an environment that remains uncertain for another while. This, backed by significant improvement on the EBITDA level over the past quarters, gives us confidence that we are financially well-equipped for the challenges that lie ahead of us. With this, I give it back to José Luis.
Thank you, Ilya. So let's discuss our operational performance in the first three quarters of the year. As explained in our calls, our installations suffered last year due to several reasons, so that our target was and still is to catch up. As you can see, we have been making consistent progress every quarter, and this quarter is not different. Our installation increased to 2.4 GW in the third quarter, a 40% improvement. And this means we managed to install around 5.5 GW in the first nine months of the year, an improvement of roughly 54%. This is still lower than what we have planned internally, but we expect to catch up and complete even higher level of installations in Q4, which naturally increases our cost and our risk profile higher than usual for the last quarter.
We have erected 1,090 turbines in 24 countries. In all, compared with 791 turbines in 17 countries last year, with the biggest share of 60% in Europe, followed by 25% in Latin America, 8% in North America, and the remaining 7% in the region of rest of the world. Our nacelle production, we assembled 979 turbines, compared to 1,003 in the same period last year. Due to the higher nameplate capacity, we reached 5 GW, demonstrating on a slight increase of 3%. Further increase in activity is expected in the current quarter, in Q4. Overall, the number of blades produced was 3,358, exactly on the same level as last year. Thereof, we produced 802 in-house, compared to 879 last year.
This level of higher outsourcing of blades is likely to continue in the future, as we want to keep our flexibility, but also to keep in-house knowledge. So now I'd like to show our guidance for the year, which we confirm. Our overall performance has been so far in line with our expectations. In particular, we were able to increase our revenue by 15% in the first nine months. After having reached our EBITDA breakeven in the second quarter, we could increase EBITDA further in the third quarter, which led to almost breakeven free cash flow in the third quarter. The working capital ratio remains in the targeted corridor. CapEx spending is likely to increase significantly in the fourth quarter, but should still stay under our guided figure.
And finally, as I mentioned earlier, the operating environment has clearly improved but is not yet fully stable. Some of the uncertainties that I highlighted earlier include inflationary pressures within Europe, supply chain reliability, order intake in the international markets, and finally, the bottlenecking of the permitting process in Germany, both for projects, but as well for transportation permits. Furthermore, after a very intense third quarter, we are facing another very high activity level in the fourth quarter, which comes with our own execution challenges in the winter period. But we believe that the overall trend are going in the right direction, setting the stage for achieving our strategic mid-term EBITDA margin of 8% in a stable macroeconomic environment. And with this, hand over to Felix to open Q&A.
Thank you very much for guiding us through the presentation. And now I would give to back to you, operator, to open the Q&A. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this time we will begin the question- and- answer session. The first question comes from the line of John Kim with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. It's John from Deutsche. First question, can you help us unpack the evolution in the sales ASP? I know it's a term you don't like to use, but if you look at the euros, Q3 revenue in EUR millions versus megawatts delivered, can you help us unpack mix effects or any sort of adjustments we should be thinking about? Also, with this in mind, should we have the same sort of considerations for the Q4 numbers? Excuse me. The reason I ask is you're looking for higher activity levels in Q4, but if you look at your rev guide, you're probably from the midpoint of the range to the high end, looking for about EUR 1.4 billion-EUR 1.8 billion in revenue. I'm just trying to square the circle on this. Thanks.
Okay. So Patxi will take the first, and then Ilya complement.
Yes. With respect to ASP, we continue to be very disciplined when booking orders. So the main thing is that the margins with which we are booking those orders, the underlying margin, sales margin, support the mid-term profitability target of the company. It's true that ASP in the quarter has been affected by some effects, so reduce the scope deals, as well as particular product mix configuration and market mix configuration that have made that the number is around point EUR 8 million per MW. But the important thing, as I said, is that the underlying margins with which we are booking the orders continue to support the midterm profitability.
To maybe support that point from Patxi, I think John is also getting not only at the order intake ASP, so to speak, but also at the performance and when it comes to execution and that ratio coming down. I think what we always have to bear in mind, and then we come to Q4, is that we have two types of projects. One is what we do as a cost-to-cost recognition . So largely, we recognize the revenues and the margin when we do the manufacturing. So production plays a huge role in how that is driven. And then, of course, we have also the milestone projects , as we call them, when as traditionally, we book revenues and margin with installation or other milestones physically in the field.
The mix between the two can be very different quarter and quarter, especially if you compare one year's quarter to another year's quarter. So the ratio, unfortunately, between the installations and the sales, the top line number is not really perfect to be reconciled. And then, of course, Luis, maybe together with you, but to calibrate John here and the others, I think now with a bit of less performance in the Q3 than we thought, some of that slips into Q4, and so it will depend whether we can deliver on those installations and manufacturing.
Yeah. But if you need to add it.
Okay, just a quick follow-up on that. The revenue mix on your Q4 deliveries, is it similar to Q3, or is it different?
Very similar in that if you, if you compare basically the mix between the cost-to-cost and the milestone projects between these two quarters, there will be differences, but they will be way more similar than this year's quarter to last year's quarter.
Okay, thanks very much.
The next question comes from the line of Vivek Midha, Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, everyone, and good afternoon. I was wondering if you might be able to elaborate on your midterm margin and the order intake. So it seems like you've got a strong order intake for this year, possibly 7 GW might be feasible. And you've commented in the past that 7 GW+ order intake would be a requirement for reaching your midterm margin. So how has your confidence in reaching the 8% margin level in 2025 changed over the last 3-6 months? Thank you.
Question, I think, as Patxi commented, we are not making compromises, but it's true that our order intake in international markets is not to the expectations which trigger underutilization cost on the activity we have there. Order intake in Europe is good, but delayed. So which means the activity of the company in the first quarter and the second quarter of next year is gonna be low, similar profile than this year. We are still planning to execute close to 1.5 GW of below- average profitability during next year. So all these effects are gonna impact a little bit, delaying a little bit achieving the midterm profitability target. But the target is still there.
We still think that the boundary conditions are there to achieve. We don't change our view. I think our view is selling in this range, 7GW-8 GW at the margins that we are selling. Selling those on time, which so far is not 100% the case. Selling those balanced in the geographies we have the operations, which is not the case, and this might make, might trigger some adjustment in the cost base of the company if the order intake doesn't come. But long story short, we are still in the company towards that midterm target.
That's helpful. Thank you. And then my second question is a follow-up on that. You highlighted the delays in the international market. Is that just the U.S. comment? Could you maybe elaborate on where you're seeing those delays? Thank you.
I think it's U.S., definitely, and reasons Patxi can elaborate. And it's especially Latin and Brazil, where we are executing a substantial volume this year as we speak, which unfortunately the market is temporarily very low, so we are not losing market share. That is, the market is not contracting much, which triggers underutilization costs temporary in the next year. So we hope that the market will recover. There is no structural reasons for the market not recovering. And regarding U.S., Patxi, I think it's a temporary effect too.
Same, the project pipelines need to be rebuilt. If IRA, that is the effect of IRA, the long-term visibility in the market is making that the market is, for the most part, in a wait-and-see mode and the activity that we are seeing is mainly on repowering of projects. So we will see the normal activity picking up towards next year for a normal year in 2025. That is our expectation.
Helpful. Thank you very much.
The next question from the line of Ajay Patel with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the presentation. I have two questions, please. Firstly, just on the guidance. You reiterated guidance today. You're already through nine months of the year, and if you take the midpoint, it almost implies a 7% margin in, on EBITDA for Q4. I'm just wondering why leave the guidance so wide? You know, why would the uncertainties be that big? And does that midpoint very much sort of where you're expecting to be? And if that's the case, how should we think about that margin going into next year? I believe consensus is at 4.5%. So just get a little bit of an understanding there. And then secondly, on legacy projects.
I just wanted to understand, I think you confirmed that 1.5 GW would be below average profitability next year. Is that all of the legacy projects finished, i.e., there isn't anything going into 25 onwards, or is there still an element that will weigh on results? And then on just the backlog, last question. You have flat order backlog in billions terms at the nine-month stage. You're calling for a sizable or similar-ish revenue to Q3. Is it possible that we end up with relatively flat order backlog at the year-end going into next year, which would imply revenues being flattish going into next year rather than having substantial growth? Any sort of even qualitative comments around that would really be helpful.
So let, let's start with your second and third question, because that's, that's maybe helps, Ilya to, to take the first, the first one. Regarding the backlog, 1.5GW that were contracted times is what we are planning to process next year. These are, with, lower profitability than the average profitability where we are, we are selling. You are right, and that's very much majority of it. Maybe there is a small tail of 200 MW still for 2025, but I don't think the figure is bigger than that. Regarding the backlog, your assumption is very much, our assumption, although we don't guide, order intake.
Yeah, if we expect a high level of activity in Q4, your assumption stands. Let's put it that way. Yes, we plan a reasonable level of order intake in Q4 to support the activity for next year.
There's one question open from AJ about how we dilute the so-called legacy projects beyond 2024. And I think, AJ, to that, there might be lingering some of them. But basically, once getting through to 2024, that makes up the newer better projects, margin-wise, and the other ones should be almost completed. Again, outliers of long lead time projects might be there, but that should be the exception a s we look into 2025.
And then the question on the guidance, let's take that together, is. And then the next key question, that's a fair. I mean, that's a fair question on the guidance. I think what the message from us is that we're that we want to confirm our views from the previous call and the call before, which was, and José said as much, is that we don't see things changed altogether since the last time we spoke, when we're calibrating everyone around the midpoint of the guidance. However, José Luis, I think what we're doing is that the risks to reaching that midpoint have not decreased, because by that good Q3, but not as good as we well expected, the burden on Q4, especially in the field, is higher than before.
So there is a, call it, slightly or increased risk to that, to that midpoint calibration. And I think when we're talking about next year is a bit earlier, I mean, probably it's very fair to say, even before the budget is lined, José Luis, it will be better than, than this year. But, I'm not sure you want to add something on, on view there.
No, we are just in the process of planning and budgeting next year. It is early to say. We will see effects of underutilization of certain capacity. We will see the effects of this 1.5 GW. We will see effects of the timing of the order intake, of the delay order intake that we had this year. As you remember, the order intake this year was very backloaded, and this has impacts in this year's profitability, but as well in the year after profitability, but too early to guide the year. Our view today is that it's a step ahead, and a step ahead to the mid-term target that we are steering to.
May I just make sure I got this clear in my mind? So effectively, what you're saying is that clearly challenging for the Q4, but consistent with midpoint of your target. 2024, we'll have 1.5 GW of legacy projects to work through. Activity levels in some areas are a little bit weaker, maybe profile of revenue into next year could be more flattish in nature. And then when we look beyond 2024, there isn't really anything that holds you back from your midterm targets in regards to as long as the international projects start to pick up, there isn't any legacy that would be a drag on performance. Are all of those comments correct? I just wanna make sure I understood what you said.
Very much. I think, a little bit, Ilya mentioned regarding Q4, if you remember in the previous call, we said we were expecting high level of activity in Q3, high level of production in Q4. The high level of activity in installation in Q3 was true, but was not yet there. I gave a number, 500 and 400. We didn't do 500, we did 450. So catching up 50 units in Q4, it costs you money and maybe some extra cost. Nothing substantially different, but that's the reality. And production as well, slightly behind that we need to catch up. So that's regarding this year. Regarding the next year, your view is spot on.
I think, maybe I will add a little bit some difficulties in some suppliers that might cost some money temporarily, until you adjust. Regarding 25, we share the same view.
Fantastic. That's very clear. Thank you for your help.
The next question is from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I just wanted to build on the previous questions to understand a little bit more about the increased risks that you're seeing. If I've understood correctly, the increased risks are a result of production shortages rather than delivery shortages. Is that correct?
Due to instability in the supply chain, certain logistics issues in transportation, especially in Germany, and this is affecting the revenue profile and the margin profile, and consequently, the installation. So installation is deviating, I would say, big majority of the cases is customer delay, but regardless, this customer delay affects our P&L. 'Cause if we have a certain percentage of POC that we don't execute, and that's very much it. So it's both, it's production, it's customer, it's logistics.
Yep. Thank you. If I can just dig also a little bit into Germany, there's been a clear uptick in permitting volumes, and so I think there's greater visibility on market growth, but you're suggesting that there's a transportation permit issue and other potential bottlenecks. I mean, what, in your view, actually needs to happen for this not to become an issue for market growth in Germany?
Yes, I think that's a very good question. I think from the market perspective, we are very happy to see that the auction volume increased from 4.6 to 7.7 expected subject to the last quarter, but in the last twelve months, substantial increase. We are happy with our 30% on the permits share in Germany. We are happy with the pricing of the German market. And we are slightly concerned about the execution, which is driven by several factors. One is country factor, that we are working together with the association, with customer, politicians, suppliers to debottleneck the permitting issue, because this is affecting us today, but it's affecting the ability of the country to deliver to the targets in the future.
I think that if the government, together with the key stakeholder, was able to accelerate substantially the permitting, because this is critical to national security, to energy supply. I mean, the country cannot afford that permits and roads are gonna be the bottleneck. So we are working collaboratively with the government, and hopefully this is a temporary impact.
Thank you.
The next question from the line of Sebastian Growe with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. Good afternoon, everybody. The first one would be on the margins. You made a comment around the quarter three development being behind your internal planning. So would be interested in getting the sort of magnitude, what you would have thought would be possible. So if we could start there, and also then the likelihood to catch up with that one in quarter four. I think you said it in your prepared remarks, but if you could put a number behind it, that would be much appreciated.
Maybe, yeah, I mean, starting with your point, José Luis, you said it, for those expectations, let's say it's called 500 turbos, then you do 5,460.
Product production is less, is less production. So our internal planning was a better, better revenue and better money on, on a better revenue. Less, we were not planning certain margin deterioration. We had, with the issues mentioned before, with certain suppliers, with certain temporary permitting issues. So, maybe you can be slightly more precise.
But I think, José Luis, when we track it back to the activity, those, let's roughly say 450 versus 500, and look, we're not wanting to really go too much into detail on the public call. I think that gives you an order of magnitude. I think what Sebastian is after, I guess, is, was that a stark deviation or just a slight shortfall? And my answer to that, José Luis, would be, as you said it in the last call, Q3, we needed to deliver a pitch-perfect quarter to make the numbers, and that didn't happen. Shall we qualify that somewhere in a 10%-15% delta to the plan? I think that calibrates people, at least not misleading you, Sebastian.
Okay, that's helpful. We can then move on to the pipeline. It's more follow-on question. So you, you mentioned in a side comment that the U.S. is definitely behind that shortfall on the international order pipeline. So if one thinks of what happens in the U.S. so far, and it's mostly repowering business within install base, obviously, that's not so much in your hands, but rather in other OEM hands. So I think it's intuitively understandable why you have sort of been missing out so far on the U.S. But if you just look ahead, and probably it would be interesting to pick your brain on this one, what are you seeing really in the pipeline? When is the market really moving from repowering to sort of new builds? And what, what's your sort of positioning there?
Against that, clearly also, how do you think currently about the Iowa plant?
I mentioned that before, so it's precisely as you mentioned that repowering is actually the bulk of the activity that we are seeing in the market. We are not positioning ourselves as a company in that segment, and the normal activity will be picking up throughout next year. Also, in the context of very long-term visibility for the first time in many years in the U.S., and pipelines operators that need to get rebuilt. So has been a significant amount of focus in PV that has to be reshifted back to wind. So it's taking some time, and those delays we are seeing in the normal activity, that market that we are addressing. So it's my earlier statement.
We will see also 2024, a transition year with respect to orders in the US, and we see a much more normalized year, 2025, for ourselves, for our company.
In other words, rather flattish development from today's point of view, really in the U.S. in particular, with no pickup, real pickup before 2025. Yeah, that's basically the thinking and the sort of planning currently?
That would be guiding the year in the U.S., Sebastian. But yes, we see a transition year in 2024 and much more normalized year in 2025.
Okay, and the last one, sorry for leaving the point again. Obviously not so easy to make sense of on the one side, you're showing that obviously the delivery capabilities are to the tune of 9 GW annualized. If I look at the 2.4, that was printed in the third quarter. Against that, obviously, you have then the order intake run rate, as also discussed before, rather at 7 GW, and then also your comment before, José Luis, that you might contemplate some capacity cuts eventually . H ow should we think about the sequence of events? If there is no sort of order pickup within the next two quarters, then you would have to sort of idle more capacity, or what is sort of the kind of thinking here at this point, if I may ask that?
Well, that's a very good point. I think at this point is definitely our Brazilian factory is suffering because lack of load. So, I think we need to address that, knowing that that was the dynamic of the market in the past and knowing that Brazil this year is one of the best contributors for the company. So we should not take long-term decisions based on short-term signals, so we need to be a little bit more patient there. The same happens in other regions. And then the other question, you name it, is, yes, we are running on a structural overcapacity that has a cost associated with that that deteriorates the profitability target.
But as well, there is always a trade-off between working capital and capacity, because you cannot prepare the company for an 8 GW capacity and sell 8 GW capacity, because the orders are not coming in that sequence, the needs are not coming in that sequence. And to produce a stable volume with an unstable and variable demand drives a massive working capital investments that we cannot afford in the current balance sheet capabilities and free cash flow of the company. B ut we take, we take care of those of your points daily in our strategic discussions, so for what volume prepare the company.
Okay, understood. And, and the very last one, if I may, just on that point of potential capacity cut in Brazil, can you give us a magnitude, if and when something was happening? So what is the affected staff number? We're talking a couple of hundreds. I have real difficulties to get a better sense simply of what that could mean on the financially then.
There is no much we can share at this point. I think we need to, we need to wait to the next call or, or to the guidance of, of next year to give you more color of how we plan, how we plan next, next year. At that time, we will have a better visibility as well.
Awesome. Thank you.
The next question is from Constantin Hesse with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Unfortunately, all of them have actually been asked, but I'll quickly throw a couple in there. But actually very quickly on the US markets, you have and historically, you've always done deals with European companies there. So just wondering if, you know, there are conversations ongoing with local utilities, local developers, so basically building a relationship for a potential future order intake there, or is that still very much going to be geared towards European developers? And then second of all, if you could maybe share your view on the Wind Power Package that was announced a few weeks ago, and, you know, could we expect any kind of tangible implementation in the coming weeks? Thanks.
To the first one, it's true that the profile of customers over the last 5-6 years has been geared towards large European utilities with activities in the U.S., but not only, and we have had also local customers, and we are building, so we are addressing the whole package to your question. So that is the position that we have and the position that we will have in the next years as well.
Mm-hmm. Regarding the Wind Power Package, I think this is somewhat encouraging. I mean, considering wind of superior public interest. It's encouraging in that the Commission and the member states are addressing the market reform. They are addressing the acceleration of permits. They finally view the value of a resilient supply chain, European base, which they want to preserve and protect. So I see very positive signals from many different angles. Of course, the Wind Power Package needs to be translated to national legislation in the different countries where we operate, to make this a reality. But definitely the North Star sets the right direction of the political priorities.
All right. Thank you very much.
We have a follow-up question from John Kim with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks, everybody. Can we spend a little bit time talking about CapEx build-out and capacity? So it'd be helpful for us to get a steer on where the EUR 180 million is going this year. Is there a regional focus? Is there a particular aspect of your production capability or footprint that you're looking to augment? And a clarification question, please. We spoke about units earlier, originally talking about 500 units in Q3, 450 delivered. Are you speaking about completed turbines, or are we talking nacelles, blades? What are we speaking to here?
Installed units. We were planning previously to install more or less 500 in Q3, 400 in Q4. This, unfortunately, we couldn't do that, so it was a good step up, but 450 instead of 500, which is a substantial deviation that we plan to catch up. But catching up in winter costs money and increases risk. Regarding the CapEx, you know, apart from the engineering capitalization of new variants and developments, majority of the CapEx goes for transportation and installation equipment, because we are doing substantial more activity, and this requires more vessels, more trucks, more everything that uses transportation and installation fixtures, more cranes, and is as well related to blade molds.
Blade molds to set up new blade lines to support the current volume and the expected volume for next year. Those are the biggest CapEx items. So it's onward capitalized transportation and installation tools for higher level of activity, new molds for the pipeline of projects and for the supply chain strategy that we are implementing.
Great. Thank you. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star one on your telephone. The next question is from Anis Zgaya with ODDO. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. So, first one is on the European Wind Act. In your view, what is the measure that could protect European manufacturers from Chinese competition? And my second question is on Latam and we see two big orders in Q3 coming from Brazil and Chile. And you are indicating that those markets are in a standby mode, so and you succeed to record two big orders in Q3. So could we have- could we hear far why are you so cautious on those markets while you are succeeding to book orders? Thank you.
Regarding your first question, there are several points, I think among the principle, in my view, is the pre-qualification criteria to participate in the auctions, eventually to install wind turbines in Europe. Cybersecurity, data residence, and control of those turbines is another factor. So I think that is perceived as European public interest to somehow be in control of that. And I think those factors can play a role. Regarding Latam, yes, in Q3, the order intake in there was good, but that was the first quarter. So we were expecting not to sell in Q3 this year, but to sell in Q4 last year.
So we waited three quarters without almost selling anything in that geography. So it's substantially less than one year earlier, and it's substantially less than our initial expectations. And I'm fair to say as well, that those orders came with certain margin compromises that were offset by above-the-average margin in certain European geographies. And this is why our view is temporarily not too optimistic. It's not that we are losing market share, it's that the market is not contracting because economies are not growing. There is a very high hydroelectricity year, a lot of water in the reservoirs and electricity price is depressed. CapEx increased 30-40% year-on-year, capital cost 300 points. And our customer just in these current circumstances, they postpone.
They postpone the investment decisions, waiting for the right PPA. We start to see some light at the end of the tunnel, but it's very, very early to change our cautious view that the region is gonna be temporarily in a sort of downturn.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Christian Bruns with Montega. Please go ahead. Mr. Bruns, your line is open. The next question is from Kulwinder Rajpal with AlphaValue. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, gentlemen. So two questions for me, please. First, if we zoom in a little bit on the Wind Action Plan that was announced last month, it mentions considerable overhaul to the grid infrastructure in Europe. So do you think those measures are adequate? Because let's say even if the wind orders start coming through, we need a lot of capacity, we need a lot of investments on grids for this capacity to reach to the consumers. So what are your thoughts on that? And secondly, just a quick question on service margins. So service margins seem to be back above 15% in Q3, if my math is correct. So how should we expect them to trend in the subsequent quarters, mostly going into 2024 and 2025? Thank you.
Starting with the second question. Thank you for the questions. Starting with the second question, I think we mentioned in the previous call that the service recovery in margins is gonna be a 2-3 years journey, because we suffer from effects, temporary inflationary effects, as well, geographical footprint effect. No concern, but temporary is gonna impact. Although long term, we are quite confident that we can come back to the previous reported margins. So and it's gonna be a step-by-step in the quarters ahead. Regarding grid, indeed, I mean, grid is a critical factor.
I mean, if for the substantial growth expected, I mean, if the European economy is gonna work carbon free, so the first thing you need to do is electrify even more the economy, and then decarbonize the part of the economy that cannot be electrified. And for that, you need grid as a key enabler for this mid- to long-term strategy to be deployed. I agree with you, it's a key enabler. I don't think it's a massive challenge short-term, but indeed, if the grid doesn't deploy at the speed of the volume, yes, this might become bottleneck.
Okay, thank you. And just to clarify on service, so, the margins that we saw before, so 17%, we will not see them again for 2-3 years? That's what you said, right?
Yeah. I would say yes, towards 25.
Okay. Thank you so much.
The next question is from William Mackie with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for getting me in there at the end. Some questions. Firstly, on the supply side, given the growing importance of cost to cost, and looking over the last three years, I mean, can you give us a sense of what you expect in terms of the operational side or the build rate, production side of the business? How you see it running in Q4? I mean, should you be at your normal sort of level of nacelles of around 1,500 for the full year? And then just with respect to your supply chain, could you put a bit of color on perhaps the changing pattern of your sourcing and production around nacelles? There seems to be, you know, somewhat of a shift towards China.
And also with regard to blades, a number of your key outsourced suppliers are, you know, in perhaps weak financial positions. And how do you see that affecting your ability to source?
Thank you for the question. Your first comment, wow! Spot on. The 1,500 is very much what we planned for the year in nacelle production. So let's see, because it's a substantial risk, because we did so far 1,000. So it means that we need to do 500 in a quarter, which is not a minor thing. Regarding supply chain, our strategy is very much risk management, so we want to keep certain capacity with the associated overcapacity cost in Europe. At the same time, we are ramping up China and India.
So we want to have a diversified supply chain and see how policy plays out to accelerate going to the right or going to the left. This might impact as well temporary profitability, but we don't want to take any, let's say, irreversible measure at this point in time without sufficient clarity in the policy, in the policy front. So we need to be cautious. Let's see, and then we have all cards open to go far, you know, left or right, and a different speed. Regarding blades, I think we don't comment much on other companies.
I think we mentioned that, suppliers in general, suppliers' profitability is something that is concern to us, because we are suffering a lot in many locations due to this situation. Regarding blades, our strategy is unchanged, and we are diversifying our supply chain. And hopefully this situation will be turned around with more volume for our suppliers, but at this point, it's something that, of course, we are on top of that. But we don't think this is gonna be, you know, that critical for our company.
I think, yes, it might cost us some money here and there temporarily until things stabilize, but I wouldn't expect any of the blade suppliers, let's put it that way, not to stay in business, which could be an issue for us. We don't expect that.
Thank you. And just two follow-ups. Thinking about the produced capacity in terms of megawatts should we factor in a continued increase in your average nacelle sizes? I mean, you're now running nearly at 6 MW per nacelle in terms of production. Is that sort of where you see the operations now? The output is boosted by the average size of the nacelle increasing as well. That's the first follow-up. And the second relates to, you know, your underperforming business or the contracts from a previous era. I mean, you talked about the 1.5 GW of business to be processed or installed in 2024.
Just to give a kind of reference or a baseline, what volume would you describe of the installed installations this year that would have been associated with low margin or contracts from a previous era? Thank you.
Regarding the average nacelle, yes, the market or for us, the average megawatt is increasing, and we see higher shares on the 6MW platform. It is one of the reasons of the ASP, because the bigger is the machine, the lower is the ASP at a stable margin. So we still sell at a stable sustainability margin, a bigger machine with lower EUR per megawatt. And this is the trend for us, because the majority of the European markets require bigger machines. The second question is very hard to answer.
The next year we know it because we are precisely on the planning for the budget, and we know even the name of the projects and geographies and so on and so forth. But for this year, I don't have that data. I'm sorry for that.
Obviously higher than this year's. I mean, that's higher than those one b ecause we have that receding effect now. On such an important question, not to mislead anybody on a public call, a nd that really, with a lot of caveats before looking them up and always be careful, take from the execution, we see something to the tune of 30% or so, but that we have to deliver the exact numbers. I think that would not be misleading, but really, a lot of caveats just to calibrate it this year versus next year.
Great. Thank you very much.
The last question is a follow-up from Sebastian Growe with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, guys. Thanks for taking my follow-up. It's going back to your earlier comments that you made. So I'm a bit confused, to be perfectly honest, and I guess that's also what other people on the call will feel. And it's on the comments that you made with regard to next year, and I know how delicate and difficult it is to talk about that openly. But obviously, there's different buckets, obviously, that would help us understand better where 2024 might settle, and that is volume. I think that is what you relatively clearly answered in the sense it's rather volume than up or down. So rather flat, sorry, the volume and up and down. I think you haven't really commented much on price. Still, the order intake is year-on-year 3% higher.
It was obviously materially higher on the 2022 order intake. So if you could give us a bit of a handle of you think there and should think there. And then also on services, what sort of a growth rate from here might be going into 2024 or on a more structural trend? And more importantly, even that's adding to the confusion, it's really that on the one side, Patxi, you have been saying that the overall pricing for products, scope, whatever reasons, might be trending down, but still the gross margin is established. At the same time, you, José Luis, said that you had some compromise in Brazil. You also then, on the contrary of the spectrum, mentioned that Germany is going very well from a pricing perspective.
If you could give us a bit of a steering, when it comes to the gross profit margin going into 2024, based on anything that you can see right now, that would be much appreciated.
Oh, thank you. And let's be clear. The order intake and the order backlog that we landed year to date delivers the mid-term target profitability. And of course, there are certain markets with a slightly above average and certain markets with below average, and there are markets with more scope and markets with less scope. But in all, we are delivering the mid-term profitability. And regarding next year, we just wanted to give you some color, but you need to understand as well, Sebastian, that we are in the planning process for the budget, and we cannot comment much on next year at this point in time. We need to wait to the regular calendar of the company.
We know that there are certain effects that might affect, like the backloaded year, like the 1.5 GW of let's say, legacy backlog, like the overcapacity in certain factories, like the stress in certain areas of the supply chain that might impact. But all in all, to the best of our knowledge today, next year, we see a better year than this year. Do we see an 8% mid-term profitability target next year? No, we don't. We but if we keep selling the quantities that we are selling at the gross margin that we are selling, the supply chain stabilizes a little bit, and we keep the deteriorating margin there.
If the permits in Germany are solved, if the margin in service improves as expected, we see that towards 2025. This is what our view is with the limited information we have today and with a long period of looking ahead.
Okay, that's helpful, color. And then the very last one for me, just on the topic of the more recent weeks, I think project guarantees. So if and when volumes were to increase, and let's assume volumes were to shoot for 8G, 9 G, whatever, then the right figure might be over time. Would you think that currently the support on the side of the banks, et cetera, would be definitely sufficient to get there, or how should we think about that?
That's a very good question, Sebastian. Let me take this one, because earlier. Look, more than the total volume, which is as described in the last year, this year, next year, without going too much into it, very comparable. It is more the mix of project and the mix of countries and where you have more balance sheet, more project finance, customers. So these things play a role. It's not just the total volume that you sell, but where and to which customer. But all that being said, as we're now very advanced already in refinancing the existing bonds line, we see from that end, no concern.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, then.
Okay. Thank you very much for all the questions. Now this is, I'd like to close our Q&A session for today, and I'd like to hand over for your final remarks, José Luis, please go ahead.
Okay. So as, as usual, I would like to close our presentation today with our key takeaways. The order intake momentum has improved throughout the year, now being at a very reasonable level. The order pipeline remains robust, providing good visibility for the future. As expected and communicated, EBITDA improved further in the third quarter, benefiting from an increased share of better price orders being now reflected in the financials. Our financial position is overall healthy, providing us with enough flexibility on the back of a strong working capital level, improving cash flow profile, and the issuance of the convertible bond. Finally, we confirm our guidance and feel comfortable with our mid-term strategic target. Moreover, we hope that the encouraging policy, ambition, and measures in our core markets will pay out, soon.
Thank you very much for your participation in the call, and I wish you a nice afternoon. Thank you.