Telecoms Drag Down Siemens

Siemens, the engineering and technological equipment giant, reported on Thursday that third-quarter profits had more than halved owing to poor mobile telecoms results and issued an annual forecast judged disappointing on the stock market. Underlying operating profit slumped as well. The price of shares in the group was showing a loss of 2.0 percent to 64.80 euros. The DAX index was showing a gain of 0.58 percent. Siemens, which is watched as an indicator of the health of German engineering, said net profit had fallen to 389 million euros ($469.1 million) in its third quarter from 815 million euros 12 months ago. The problems arose mainly in the mobile telephone division, which is to be sold at a loss to BenQ of Taiwan. Shareholders in BenQ gave approval on Thursday to the acquisition which is to be completed by the end of September. Meanwhile, losses by the division continue to pull down group profits. But even excluding the mobile telephone division, net profits fell sharply to 625 million euros from 871 million euros. The group said it had decided to classify the mobile phone activities from now on as "discontinued activities", with the effect that the results would no longer be included in the group figures for operating profits, orders and sales. The sales on this basis rose by 6.8 percent to 18.750 billion euros and orders rose by 9.3 percent to 19.935 billion euros.