German electronics giant Siemens, which employs over 800 people in Ireland, has said its profits were up sharply in the fourth quarter of its current business year, despite a shock in the energy division and continuing difficulties in the telecoms and IT services units.
Siemens, which runs its business year from October to September, said it made net profits of €614m in the three months to September, up from €77m a year earlier.
In the fourth quarter of its previous business year, Siemens had taken heavy charges on its mobile phone handsets division which it had sold.
Fourth-quarter operating profit was up 35% at €1.25 billion on an 8% rise in sales to €23.9 billion. But the energy technology - or power generation - division sustained a 43% drop in operating profit to €145m in the three-month period, due partly to the bankruptcy of a consortium partner.
The communications and IT services divisions remained in the red in the July-September period, running up loss of €82m and €27m respectively. All other divisions turned in a profit.
Taking the year to September as a whole, Siemens saw its net profit rise by 38% to €3.1 billion.
Siemens reported world wide sales for the fiscal year 2006 up 1.15% to 87.32 billion from €75.44 billion in 2005.
Earlier this year, Siemens announced the signing of agreement with Bayer to acquire the chemical and pharmaceutical company's diagnostics division which employs 300 people in Swords.
Siemens CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said that the company expect strong growth in 2007 and are positioned for all the company's groups to meet their target margins.
