By Christoph Steitz and Tom Käckenhoff
FRANKFURT/DUESSELDORF (Reuters) -Siemens Energy expects to be hit by import tariffs under U.S. President Donald Trump, it said on Wednesday, citing its network in Mexico as the most exposed to extra charges on power equipment supplies.
Global companies are trying to reposition themselves in response to expected tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, while Trump has already imposed duties on steel and aluminium imports.
Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch said he could not quantify the impact, but that price increases would be passed on to customers, facilitated by an order backlog that reached a record of 131 billion euros ($136 billion) at the end of December.
Siemens Energy makes a fifth of its sales in the United States, where it employs around 12% of its staff and operates eight production locations that make wind and gas turbines as well as power grid equipment.
Bruch said Siemens Energy made blades and generators for gas turbines – a business that is booming in the United States – locally, but also imported components from Europe and other countries, putting them at risk of tariffs.
Declining to give detail of how much Siemens Energy imported into the United States, he said only the U.S. market was extremely important.
“We will have effects (as a result of) tariffs. The big question will be what that means for the bottom line, and we can’t quantify that yet,” he told journalists after presenting final first-quarter results.
“The link between supplies from Mexico and our American plants is important. And we look at this more or less on a daily basis, depending on the tariff scenario,” Bruch said.
Shares in the company traded around flat following the comments, reversing pre-market gains.
Bruch said the company was investing around $500 million in the United States in the 2023-2025 period to expand production facilities, and was also examining further investment options.
The company also posted net profit of 252 million euros for the first quarter of its financial year, which runs from October to September, beating expectations of 130 million euros in an LSEG poll of analysts, the company said.
The order book covers around 93% of Siemens Energy’s projected 2025 sales, the group said, confirming sales are expected to grow by 8-10% from the 34.5 billion generated in 2024.
Orders in the U.S. rose by 62% in the first quarter to 3.9 billion euros, the company, which last month published better than expected preliminary results, said.
($1 = 0.9666 euros)
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz and Tom Kaeckenhoff; Editing by David Goodman, Rachel More and Barbara Lewis)
