Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to this investor call for our final full year numbers for 2021. And of course, all what we have today should also be seen in connection with our announcement from the 26th of January. 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. But 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 road show. We will also be joined by Hans Martin who is starting his new job now. But next to me today, for those reasons, we have Mathias, which all of you know as well. So Mathias and I will do the investor presentation today, and I'm sure we'll find a good split. With 30 minutes to preparation, Mathias, I'm sure we'll get through this presentation. So with that, let's go into the highlights for 2021. We ended 2021 with a revenue of EUR 15.6 billion. It's a year-on-year revenue growth despite the increasing supply chain challenges. And we had a very high level of deliveries at 16.6 gigawatt, 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 at end of the year. We had a total order intake of 13.9 gigawatt. 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 gigawatt 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 #1 by Corporate Knights in the 18th Annual Global Ranking. And 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. So we made a full integration of offshore within our first 12 months. We've expanded development and development of the development business tremendously through 2021, and we've made 2 investments through the Vestas Ventures in 2021. So let's go into a little bit more detail starting first with the global business environment. And 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 2 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 priority still is that our almost 30,000 colleagues around the world can continue to 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 the short-term electricity demand increases around the world, but it also, therefore, supports our critical infrastructure exempt, 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 costs. We'll talk more about it now. It's not only the hits of price, but it's also the instability and the not being able to rely on physical delivery on the 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. If 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 constrained, 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 and not least our colleagues that have worked incredibly hard to deliver the 16.6 gigawatt 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 then look at the Power Solution, 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 continue at record high level. We see PPA levels are adjusting to it and have started 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 is 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 gigawatt in preferred supply agreements, and we continue the dialogue around the world in how to localize and how to help our partners and the 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 incredible difficult conditions. So 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 gigawatt of multi-brand contracts in Latin America, which, by the way, became an individual region from 1st of January. When we then look at the duration of the service contracts, we now cover the full duration up to 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 129 gigawatts under Service. It's not long since we celebrated we passed 100 gigawatts, and we have an average year's contract duration of 10 years. Below, you will also see the split in the regions. And there we're, of course, encouraged by 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 an 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. So 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 gigawatt, it's 532 million tonnes 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 1, 2 and 3. 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 1 of several projects where we are investing into 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, but more to come and more of those innovations, please. You've seen the charts discussed here to the right. The last 1 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. And 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 and saying, please, Marika, but please, Mathias, take us through the financials, and then we will take the details afterwards.

Thank you, Henrik, and good morning, everyone. So 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. and 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 '21 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 costs, 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, it was generally stable over the year, negatively impacted by a buildup in inventories, but offset by payables and, to some extent also the down and milestone payments. Looking at the cash flow. We continue to see a positive cash flow and actually an increase compared to last year. So cash flow in '21 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 road show. If we look at 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 lost 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 '21, of 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. 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 '21 at minus 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 '21, 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 proposed 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.

Thank you so much, Mathias. It must be nice to talk to your own slides for once, right? So I know who knows both the slides and the details of that. But 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 15th of December. So 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 3 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. But as part of 2021, we made it as a separate business unit globally. This led 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 -- and 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 P-to-X 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. But if we just look at it, the wind and the electricity production from wind was by this approximately 1% of the total energy supply when we look in 2020. We often talk 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 Accord? 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 in here and are also trying to translate that into an annual installation in gigawatt. And 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 part 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. So Onshore, it's a large market. It's very well developed. It's mature. And when we look at that towards 2025, we still see a 2% to 4% compounded average growth rate. 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. But 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. And 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, 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 lead to get a better return when we look to the coming decades. We also see Power-to-X, and we've now seen 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 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. And 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 gigawatt under Service. Of course, we see that as a solid growth for the high base. We expect a compounded average growth rate of 7% to 10% and, 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, and all our colleagues in that part of Vestas deserve a huge credit of the progress they have made in 2021. Then we also come to our long-term financial targets. Rest assured that even though that the starting point is with the guidance of 0 to 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 relates especially to technology, pricing and 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 the element or a part where there will also be an improvement when we look to the years to come. So 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. And we all know that they are just a natural result of the others that comes to that. So 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. And it cannot be done without seeing both the engagement, but also the positive ownership and responsibility across Vestas worldwide. So therefore, 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 the 26th of January. So our revenue outlook for 2022 is EUR 15 billion to EUR 16.5 billion. The Service is expected to grow approximately 5%, and the EBIT margin is 0 to 4, of which Service margin is expected to be approximately 25% and our total investment in the year is approximately EUR 1 billion. It's also worth highlighting here that in the current business environment, some of those are basic assumptions that are within the guidance will come with a 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 hear the guidance excludes the general change that comes and is announced from 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. And then, 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. So with that, I hand over to the operator and start the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Casper Blom from Danske Bank. Our first question comes from Casper Blom from Danske Bank.

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?

Thanks, Casper. And we come back to the ASP. I think EUR 0.86 million 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 are happy with the mix and geographies of it. But you can also compare EUR 0.86 million to the average for the year and also see that it also illustrates that we are learning throughout the year. And 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. So therefore, the 0.86 reflects what we have now been saying consistently for several quarters. Prices are coming up and if you're not aware of your costing, then you will actually be having incredibly challenged project backlog. So we are happy with that. Is that solely enough to meet a margin target? No, it's not, Casper, because pricing is 1 part of what I just shared and showed with you. So 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. But 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 some of the things we are working through. And actually, we have become pretty good in mitigating, but it is not without the same kind of challenges when we enter '22, which we have 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 like '21. So I think when we say a compounded average growth rate 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 rate? 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. But 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 multi-brand.

Our next question comes from Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs.

I have 2 questions. Firstly, I'd like to unpack the outlook a little bit. So can you give us broad indications of how much EBIT margin has been lost in '22 from the delayed pass-through of raw material costs? And how much has been impacted or was embedded for supply disruptions? Just trying to get a better quantification for each, so that we can think about the future a little bit better. And then within the outlook guidance, is there any amount assumed for early-stage development and the profits that you may obtain from that?

Yes. 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, I will almost say we will be over natural. Because what we have seen quarter-on-quarter, we have executed 16 gigawatts. So we assume the current challenges are continuing. And we said that and we have been prepared for that through second half of last year. And some of the mitigations you simply cannot adjust euro for euro or dollar for dollar to take the scope off. But 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 to 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, 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. But 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, I will say, 6 to 7 quarters will be continuing in '22. 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. But 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. So 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. But we won't give a specific P&L for it.

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 there's a way to ask the same question would be: you had a 20% increase in ASP Q4 on Q4 '21 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?

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

The next question comes from Dan Togo from Carnegie.

Yes. A couple of questions as well for me. Maybe on offshore, you have previously guided revenue in offshore in the range of EUR 2 billion to EUR 2.5 billion here in both '21 and '22 and low single-digit margins. Are there any reasons to change that or anything that could 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 '24. There's a lot of cost inflation here, shortage of staff, et cetera. Any impact on the CapEx guidance that you have, comments on that would be appreciated? And also maybe are there any particular milestones we should look out for in development plan? We are seeing some of your competitors having some problems with the development of their platforms. Are there any milestones where you can confirm us that you are well on track for the development of the 15 megawatt platform?

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, that was sort of the look on the entire offshore business, so that included Service. And 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've foreseen over those 2 years of '21 and '22. So for that reason, I think it would probably be prudent to lower the expectations for what offshore turbines can do in '22 just a little bit.

And 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. Then 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. So 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. And when it comes to our platforms, we are well under the way in delivering in 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 through our research and development around the world. And as you would have seen in the warranty provision, we have had the 2 outstanding gauges you know of, which we are working diligently through, and that's basically what is to still do and get finished throughout 2022.

The next question comes from Supriya Subramanian from UBS.

My first question is on pricing again. Just wanted to get your thoughts on all the ASP price hikes that we've seen. When do you think that goes towards so it's meaningfully impacting the P&L and actually supporting margins? Would that be only towards the second half of '22? And also how sticky do you think these prices are? So let's say, towards the end of '22 or '23, 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?

I think on the ASP, it's clear. We are talking often in hundreds of millions or even in billions of euros when you talk about projects of this nature, Supriya. So if you look at that, of course, we will have a close dialogue with any customer we are planning and doing that for. So 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. But right now, PPAs are coming up towards energy prices you have seen, and that also gives that spill from an investment decision point of view. It actually works pretty well if you started with any new project today. So 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 start 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 '22, just to make it clear again, is then all of the unknowns and the mitigations for some of this drops out. And of course, there will be also some of this where if we haven't been able to pass the price increases in the backlog and then, of course, if it eases up, then some of those would also go to the benefit of Vestas. That's beyond any doubt.

And 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 to the P&L? That will not be towards the second half of '22. As you say, that will be a little bit longer term. So '22 has a good coverage and the ASP increase in Q4 will only have a small benefit in '22, if any.

And my second question is more around demand developments and, 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 1Q, but sort of going through '22 as well, what are your thoughts on how demand is likely to develop across the various key areas?

I think we have to break it into 2 parts. I think we have, I mean beyond any doubt, quarter-by-quarter in 2021 said, in that environment, we have been dealing with in '21, 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. And if you haven't done that, it ends badly. So therefore, we are saying, if we have, in certain markets, a lower market share because somebody is offering, we call it, a nonfully costed project, then we live with a lower order intake. If we have seen it, there are both in Americas and there are 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, as a customer and a partner, you have 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. So let's see how soon we can clear some of the outstanding, a little bit caught in the EnVentus project, but then the new projects are also coming and being discussed as we speak. But there can be no doubt that for us, we would rather have an either lower market share or a lower order intake than sitting and working with a loss-making, and therefore, a non-value-creating pipeline.

The next question comes from Sean McLoughlin from HSBC.

Firstly, on warranties. How quickly do you expect these to normalize in '22? 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 is in there? Is EUR 1 billion, in fact, the norm going forward? And how will that impact cash generation in '22?

First of all, your 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. And you can see the breakdown and you can follow those, which we do absolutely on a quarterly basis. So 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 are in, as you can see in Q4. But you can also see our consumption is running at a relatively high level, as Mathias said. And that will continue throughout most part of 2022, leveling off when we are past those repairs and upgrades. So I think that's 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. But 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. And when it comes to CapEx into the turbines and the technology, you will generally be able to see that. But as an incoming leader to the offshore, we will not provide that breakdown.

I suppose that. Can I ask again, is this the kind of level that we should expect on a regular basis? Or is that something, let's say, you're pushing hard on to the 15 megawatt platform this year, therefore, it's higher than you would expect over the following period.

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've also seen we have done a little lower in '21 compared to where we initially did. So 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. So 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. But 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.

The next question comes from Deepa Venkateswaran from Bernstein.

So my 2 questions. One is starting with logistics. I believe Maersk today, when they were giving guidance, said that they start seeing a normalization in ocean feed in the second half of the year. So I was just wondering, obviously, maybe they're being conservative. But Henrik, I just wanted to see how this ties in with your assumption that actually you continue seeing disruptions through the year? And I think you also mentioned that at least the rates have stabilized, they are no longer increasing. So is that a forward indication that perhaps second half could be normal? And I had a follow-up question on the Services growth. So before consolidating offshore wind in the Services, you were having high single-digit growth in that business and your long-term outlook as well from the market projections is similar. So I just wanted to put the 5% that you've guided for this year in context of where you expect in the medium to long term. Should we still think that it would be around high single digit, or is there anything unusual in '22 that pushes this down? Maybe just some further clarity on that would be helpful.

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 2 close partners to Vestas. We work 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 '22 to actually work through this instability. And I think right now just the backlog of things and ships in wait and hold outside harbors will take months to clear. So even in the sense of the day where you start hearing about that it's clearing, it will take quite a long time to clear the backlog. So for us, please, I know everyone are focusing on this, it's just a rate issue. But rate and price is 1 thing. The other thing that happens, both from an inbound and an outbound point of view, is actually the instability and the deviations that enforces you to find mitigations to delayed incoming components and raw materials or also to cite when outbound can't access the places where we are establishing it. So yes, we are absolutely positive over that. It hasn't changed as much in the last quarter, but that also means it still remains at a fairly high level. And it's not long ago, a 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 the 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 and preventative maintenance. So some of those transactional sales and one-off is just people accelerating to get the maximum out of turbines. So that led to a Service growth ending the year of 21%. We are saying, as we just stated in here, 7% to 10%, expect the same. We like the business. And in generally, we are just coming into the year, with that strong finish, a little cautious of the 5%. So that's what we are starting the year with. And don't forget, again, it's a EUR 2.5 billion business. So 1%, yes, it's EUR 25 million in top line. So there is that uncertainty in the current environment.

The next question comes from Akash Gupta from JPMorgan.

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. But maybe just wondering what you see in the emerging market 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? And second question is on your wind farm development pipeline. And if you can help us quantify the gains you had in 2021? I think in the first 9 months, you said you farmed down 1.3 gigawatt of projects and just wanted to get whether the gain was we are talking about double-digit million or was it more in triple-digit million euro range?

Okay. As I have Mathias here next to me, I will let him take also a bit on the wind farm and developments. So 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 that 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. So 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, 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. So I'm really here encouraged 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. So we are quite adamant that this has to happen. And when we look at the demand cycle, we have 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. So 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.

And then on the development side, Akash, 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 stand-alone business here in Vestas, 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 '21, we did see a positive impact of around EUR 30 million, which, of course, we are very happy with.

The next question comes from Ben Heelan from Bank of America.

First question for me was on orders and what are your expectations, even if it's high level, for the year in terms 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? And generally, when you look back at 2021, what can you change to prevent that happening again?

If we take the orders, Ben, and I think we are 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 gigawatt is not a target we aspire to take, but we cannot let ourselves deviate from the point. 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. So when we come into '22, we aim for something that is more than the current run rate of orders. But again, there, it all then comes down to how can we build that in the markets we're, and we are positively over that, and you would have also seen the value of our backlog is reflecting those market conditions. So we are entering '22, 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. And if you don't know the costing of your supply chain, you can't price your solution. And I think that we have put in an awful lot of discipline and an awful lot of work into. We came into '21, felt we were very well equipped for it. But 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, 50 years case. So 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. So we are protecting, we're using what we have always been doing and we are strongly believing in that, that model is absolutely still there despite the challenges we have seen in both '20 and '21.

The next question comes from Claus Almer from Nordea.

Yes, also a few questions from my side. The first question goes to the pipeline. And Henrik, if you go back, let's say, 2 quarters from now and look at what is still in the pipeline, could you put a percentage on projects that have been put on hold, projects that have disappeared from the pipeline, given the trend in the ASP? That would be the first question.

Okay. No, I can't give because you're asking me also a little bit to, therefore, comment on what went to other people and how badly they did on setting the right ASP in those, and I generally don't do that, Claus. But if we look at our pipeline, and you can see it, if we're honest, if you have an average over the year that ends at EUR 0.81 million, of course, you would have told me, well, you should have started with a higher price in the beginning of the year. But that's not how the world works. So therefore, some of the price development simply overtook even the most online and most here and now costing of our solutions. And that, of course, is sad to see. But 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, but it is also fair saying pricing is part of it, but it is probably the underlying mitigation. And as we are rightly saying, I'm not impressed, and 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, but we're also encouraged and really positive over that we were able to execute 16.6 gigawatt to our partners across the world. So Claus, it's a dual thing on the ASP, but we can see if you're not in control and discipline, we can also see the result of that.

Sure. So let me try to ask in another way. Let's assume all competitors will see the same ASP as you do. How is that a given share of the project that suddenly will not be doable, that's actually what I'm trying to figure out?

But 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, and you can see some of the challenges coming from your hypothetical thought. So 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're a customer that are stuck with an early offtake PPA because you did your PPA offtake first and then secured your permitting and probably wanted to source the turbine solution last. Then of course, you can be stuck. And 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 project and potentially link it to further business, because the customers don't want to be short of the solution and the electricity supply if we have sold the PPA at lower levels.

Okay. That makes a sort of sense.

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

That will be a totally different question, Henrik, hopefully. No. So in the past, you have been sometime giving some color to the timing of the pipeline short term. So when we look at Q1, Q2, given this ASP trend and all these things you've been making 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 on the same page as the developers?

I think, Claus -- we are actually super positive because if -- and I was asked a little earlier today, we see generally that most of the energy supplying industry revising their P&Ls and outlooks upwards or even also for 2021, they have come out better because the output of all of the solutions are much more valuable today with the energy prices. So 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. But I can't give you a quarter on it. We can see on the 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. And 1 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.

Sure. Makes sense. And then just for clarification, Mathias, did you say the [indiscernible] was EUR 13 million or EUR 30 million, just to be sure?

3-0.

The next question comes from Mark Freshney from Credit Suisse.

Henrik, I ask you this question every time in the last few quarters. And if I may, I'll ask it again? 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. And I think many of the issues on low margins, I mean, your margins have been falling for 6 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. So prices need to go up by more than just cost and 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?

Mark, you know 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. But as I also answered earlier on this call, there's no way we can do these things in anticipation or mitigation to something that has changed that rapidly throughout the last 6 quarters. That is, of course, something that we work with and feel pretty hard as a team. And 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. But when we look at it, the discipline pricing is the foundation for getting back to that profitability target. And I think here, Mark, it's fair saying you can see we are disciplined. Otherwise, we wouldn't have let go of that level of orders to the industry. So 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. So that, as I said again here, we see a big upside for that. We see big upside also being in there early with partners, and as you would see from both the co-development and early-stage development that business is incredibly well off the ground. So 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.

And if I may have a follow-up? I mean some of your -- I mean the U.S. PTC has clearly been delayed. But I mean, some of your customers will be almost in rude health when they'll be looking at new merchant projects with 3 to 4 years payback or the very high levels of corporate PPAs that some of the industry specialists have been talking about. I mean when you and your sales team do DCFs just as the clients can do them. So when you speak to CEOs or 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?

I always think it's fairly dangerous if it's down out to CEOs of fixing orders and pricing, Mark. So the understanding here, and I can promise you that because some of that went on last night, is that there is a generally understanding of that deacceleration and also availability of capacity has a price. And we don't run away from that. When it then 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, then I think country by country we can see that is happening. But I think it's also fair saying 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. But 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. And it still seems that there are different levels of walkaway in the industry than the one we have. And therefore, we work diligently with that. We do everything we can to leverage our touch points with our partners. But it sounds like we are sort of 2 against each other. It's actually trying to get more build, 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.

The next question comes from Martin Wilkie from Citi.

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 something that have previously been outsourced? And obviously, you've done sort of huge things on towers and blades and all these kind of things. Or do we think that, that sort of model where you're sort of an assembler of some of these key components will still be there as your prevalent model? So that was my first question.

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 Day. He comes from the -- theoretically talking and been spending most of his working life in that. They managed to both do modelization and also, therefore, connecting partners in various degrees closer to you. And I think that's part of the future in this industry. And of course, that works along the same lines that industries that are maturing get 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. So 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, which we shared with you in the Capital Markets. And that scalability has to come on behalf of the industry, but it also has to be the upside for partners working closely with us. So the answer is, yes, it has to mature and it has to mature quicker than slower, Martin.

That's helpful. And then the second question 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., then maybe a need to assemble more locally than perhaps it has been in the past, would that have a big impact on how you run the business in North America if that you passed in that way or does the sort of capacity supply chain and so forth already exist to manage that sort of local content requirements?

I think, Martin, it's probably been in development over the last 10 years anyway. So if you look at where we have localized over the last 10 years, you saw, you followed it when we also shared with you how we did in Latin America and went into Brazil, exactly the similar we will be doing. And that's where I will say, you can always say, "Oh, that's a blame to the tariffs or that's a blame to the incentive locally," but there's also the other part, as the technology grows, it becomes less and less transportable across the world. So that's also why part of the localization has to happen closer or in country or continent where you're putting the solutions up. So I think that one in the short term, it will be a little bit of a discussion point, but in the long term, we have factories, we have a lot of colleagues in the U.S. So therefore, by agreeing to a Build Back Better and a PTC in the U.S., we would only accelerate that development, we believe, at least in the U.S. If we could then, as operator, have the last question?

The last question comes from John Olaisen from ABG.

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 this built in for 2023? Or in other words, when do we need to see supply chain issues diminishing or improving prices to start hoping for more normalized markets in '23?

John, you're absolutely right. We won't give any indication of 2023 yet. I think we're executing on '22. We are building any forecast of '23 throughout the year, as you would appreciate. And as we have said here, we don't foresee an ease of the current environment throughout 2022. So instead of sitting and hoping on an ease, we get into the actuals and the practical one and execute on that one. And 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. And as an industry, I would leave the rest to the entire industry to deal with. But from Vestas, we are ready to '22.

Yes. But my question wasn't actually how do you see the markets in '23 now, it was more when will you get some indication of how '23 will look like? Do we have to wait till Christmas before you know how -- or get some better indication of how '23 will look? How short is the lead time on your visibility, in general?

I think, John, our lead time is normally several quarters out. And if you look at that, we have a backlog of EUR 18.1 billion. So we are not without visibility in doing that. But I'm also here saying for that, and we can have that and we can have conversations over it. but from an industry point of view and from a competitive point of view, that will not be advisable to start guiding beyond the quarters. And you have basically seen what challenges we had guiding within '21 with just the challenges we have had and the instability we have had. So we talk about '23 when we get to it. Now it's about '22. With that, thank you so much for today, and we really look forward to see you over the coming days. And with that, I'm sure we will have further conversations around the details of our full year '21. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.