Order intake rose by 31% to 6.21 gigawatts in 2019, with Europe accounting for more than half of its orders, followed by North America and Latin America.

The world's eight-largest maker of wind turbines, however, reported sales and profit margins at the lower end of target ranges in preliminary results for 2019.

Sales grew a third to 3.28 billion euros ($3.74 billion) last year, while the margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell to 3.8% from 4.1%.

That was within the group's outlook range for sales of 3.2-3.5 billion euros and an EBITDA margin of 3-5%, but lower than Refinitiv estimates, which expected sales of 3.34 billion euros and an EBITDA margin of 4.3%.

Shares in the group, which will publish it final 2019 results on March 24, were indicated to open 8% lower, while the blue-chip DAX index was seen opening 6% down due to fears of economic pain from the coronavirus epidemic.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Riham Alkousaa & Aditya Soni)