Shares in Danish Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS.KO), the world's largest wind turbine maker, plummeted Wednesday after it released a set of vastly consensus-missing--and by its own admission disappointing--first-quarter results that it attributed to delayed order hand-overs and high costs of new turbine models.

Vestas' net loss widened to EUR162 million, from a EUR85 million loss a year earlier, when a consensus of 11 analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected the loss to narrow to EUR58.7 million. Shares fell more than 10% in early trade, before recovering some lost ground--at 1230 GMT, Vestas's shares were trading down 7.9%, at DKK45, in an overall OMX C20 market that was down 0.6%.

Aarhus-based Vestas, which has raised turbines in 66 countries, had a tumultuous 2011, reflected in a share price that has dropped more than 70% in the past year as industry over-capacity, order execution issues and development budget overruns led to two profit warnings, a major management reshuffle and a EUR150 million cost-cutting program.

Wednesday, Vestas Chief Executive Ditlev Engel said there are no plans to increase the size of this program, which will see 10% of the company's workforce laid off. The company has "a record-high order backlog" and "aim to ship 40% more this year than last," so the program is adequate for the time being.

But Bernstein Research, which called Wednesday's results "truly shocking," noted that there doesn't seem to be any relationship between Vestas' order backlog or announced delivery dates and the actual deliveries and revenues booked.

"The backlog might be at a record level of EUR10 billion, but investors have no idea of the earnings levels contained in that," said Bernstein analyst Martin Prozesky in a note. "These results will--and should--continue to raise questions about the viability of the current strategy, capital structure and management."

"What hits us very hard in the first quarter was on one hand that the costs of some of our new products are very high, and it takes time to bring them down," Engel told Dow Jones Newswires. "On the other we had expected to hand over more turbines to our customers than we did, and which would have brought in a somewhat higher revenue," Engel said, underlining that the cost cutting measures and the lay-offs hadn't yet started to make a significant effect in the first quarter.

He also said that despite the setback Vestas is maintaining its full-year guidance, which means the hand-over rate--the point at which wind farm projects can be booked as revenue--must be stepped up in the coming quarters.

The hand over rate rose by 28% in the first quarter, against a very weak 2011 period, Engel said, while actual completion and shipping of turbines rose 47%. At the same time, the intake of new orders doubled on the year, to 1,269 megawatts.

This led to a 4.2% rise in first-quarter sales to EUR1.11 billion, from EUR1.06 billion. Analysts had however pegged first-quarter sales at EUR1.49 billion.

For the full year, however, Vestas said it still expects to be able to produce sales in the range of EUR6.5 billion to EUR8 billion. It also reiterated its margin target for earnings before interest and tax, or EBIT, at between zero and 4%, compared with a margin of -0.7% in 2011, and a first-quarter margin of +22%.

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