Sales increased by 9% from €7.3bn in 2016-17 to €7.95bn in 2017-18. Adjusted Ebit rose from €421m to €514m, and net income soared from €289m to €475m over the same period. Alstom’s Ebit margin also improved from 5.8% to 6.5%.

However, Alstom says orders received dropped from €10bn in 2016-17 to €7.95bn in 2017-18, while its order backlog declined from €34.78bn to €34.18bn during the same period.

Alstom says its net debt remained roughly stable at €255m while equity amounted to €4bn on March 31 2018.

For 2018-19, Alstom expects sales to increase slightly to around €8bn while its adjusted Ebit margin should rise to 7%.

“These excellent results demonstrate the success of the 2020 strategy, with an outstanding sales growth and a further margin enhancement,” says Mr Henri Poupart-Lafarge, Alstom’s chairman and CEO. “Alstom continued to leverage the growing globalisation of the mobility market and is now in an excellent position to join forces with Siemens Mobility. Together Alstom and Siemens Mobility will shape tomorrow’s mobility.”

Alstom’s 2020 strategy is based on five objectives:
• creating a customer-focused organisation
• providing a complete range of solutions - signalling, systems and services represented 57% of sales in 2017-18 which Alstom says is in line with its 2020 objective of reaching 60%
• creating value through innovation - research and development was maintained at €278m which represented 3.5% of sales in 2017-18
• achieving operational and environmental excellence - Alstom aims to cut energy consumption by 20% for solutions and 10% for operations by 2020, and
• achieving a diverse and entrepreneurial workforce - 20% of Alstom’s management and professional roles are occupied by women and the objective is to reach 25% by 2020.