Siemens has cast a shadow on any hope for an industry turnaround, forecasting that 2010 would be tougher on the engineering and telco giant than 2009.
Siemens posted a net loss of €1 billion during its fourth quarter, sparked by a massive €1.9 billion writedown on its JV investment with Nokia under NSN.
The group warned of further cost cutting and CEO Peter Löscher, forecast a fall in sales in the mid-single-digit percentage range.
He said that profits were anticipated to further drop from €7.5 billon in its core business sectors in 2009 to between €6 -€6.5 billion in 2010.
NSN is losing 9% of its staff under a current global restructure. Prior to the one-off charge Siemens’s profits across the group were up from €1.5 billion to €1.9 billion with most of the gain coming from healthcare.
In order to make its IT services group more competitive, Loescher said that it will become a legally separated entity as of July 1, 2010.
Loescher added "the recent developments in Dubai demonstrate that the global crisis in the real estate and financial markets is far from over, and that the situation remains unstable,”