German engineering giant Siemens said Wednesday that it was sticking to its full-year forecasts despite lower earnings, and a slump in orders during its fiscal first quarter.
The Munich-based group said net profit fell by 12 per cent per cent to 1.214 billion euros (1.6152 billion dollars). New orders dropped by 3 per cent to 19.141 billion euros.
Analysts had, however, expected net earnings would drop to 1.12 billion euros from 1.38 billion euros in the same quarter of 2011.
"In an uncertain economic environment, we got off to a solid start in fiscal 2013," chief executive Peter Loescher said releasing the results.
He went on to say: "For the rest of the year, we don't expect any tailwinds from the global economy to help us reach our ambitious goals."
Siemens is one of the first of Germany's major companies to post its results for the final quarter of last year.
First-quarter revenues rose 1.5 per cent to 18.128 billion euros thanks to demand from the world's leading emerging economies, Siemens said. The group's fiscal year runs from October to September.
For the full year, Siemens said the outlook for the group remained unchanged.
Orders and revenues were projected to show "moderate growth ... approaching the level of fiscal 2012."
Siemens expects full-year profit to come in between 4.5 to 5 billion euros.