FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German industrial bellwether Siemens (TLO: SIE.TI - news) took a more pessimistic stance on the rest of the year as industry demand remained weak and project charges weighed on quarterly profits.
With the euro zone economy in recession, weaker-than-expected growth in the United States and an unexpected slowdown in China's manufacturing sector, hopes that the world's economy may start to recover soon have been fading.
Siemens, which makes products ranging from fast trains and gas turbines to hearing aids, said on Thursday it now expected net profit from continuing operations to reach the lower end of its outlook range of 4.5-5 billion euros ( $5.9-6.6 billion).
Analysts in a Reuters poll on average saw profit for the engineering group's financial year through the end of September declining to 4.84 billion euros from 5.18 billion last year, partly because of a 1 billion euro hit from its savings programme.
Siemens Chief Executive Peter Loescher has been criticised for being too slow to react to a downturn in the global economy and is now struggling to get the company back on track to compete with rivals such as General Electric (Other OTC: GEAPP - news) .
He put on the back burner a plan to increase annual sales by about a third to 100 billion euros and late last year launched a massive push to save 6 billion euros over two years.
In its fiscal second quarter, which ended in March, Siemens saw revenue slip by 7 percent to 18.0 billion euros due mostly to lower wind power sales in the United States and sliding demand for industry automation and drive technologies.
But quarterly orders - in indicator for future sales - jumped 20 percent, more than expected, to 21.45 billion euros thanks to major orders in Europe and the Americas.
Still, Siemens said it now saw full-year revenues declining moderately, compared with a previous outlook for relatively stable sales.
Net profit from continuing operations were flat at 982 million euros in the fiscal second quarter, missing the consensus for 1.10 billion euros.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Christoph Steitz)
