German solar PV inverter company SMA Solar Technology AG recorded its highest order intake of the past decade in Q1/2022, however tight supply of electronic chips pulled down its annual sales in the quarter by 8.2% to €220.6 million.
Management reported selling 2.788 GW worth of inverter capacity, a decline of 17% over previous year. Its EBITDA dropped 26.4% to €14.8 million on annual basis, while net income plummeted 62.5% to €3.0 million.
As of March 31, 2022, the group counted its order backlog as worth €1.047 billion, having grown from €836 million reported for the same quarter last year. More than half of it €572.1 million comes from the product business.
Due to this backlog, despite the sales decline, SMA management is confident of achieving its 2022 forecast of sales between €900 million and €1,050 million along with EBITDA of €10 million to €60 million. It added that at present it sees no threat to the forecast due to the war in Ukraine.
"Despite the ongoing strained supply situation in relation to electronic components, we expect to record most of the product-related order backlog as sales by the end of the year," said SMA CEO Jürgen Reinert.
He added, "In the coming years, we are anticipating significant market growth both for our core business of photovoltaics and for battery-storage systems, energy management, e-mobility and hydrogen production as fields for the future. SMA will be able to profit from that once the component shortage has been overcome."
SMA Solar's 2021 financial results also reflected the impact of chip shortage (see SMA Solar Declares 2021 Financial Results).
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