Alstom’s order book grows faster than its delivery machine
INDUSTRY: Alstom’s production is falling behind its own order book, and new CEO Martin Sion has ordered an immediate overhaul of how the company executes its contracts.
Speaking to investors on 13 May, he said execution on major rolling stock contracts is weighing on margins and cash generation — and that fixing it is now the company’s stated priority.
The backlog stands at a record EUR 104.4 billion. The adjusted EBIT margin came in at 6.1%, below the guided 7%.
Execution gap widens between sales and delivery
Alstom’s book-to-bill ratio for FY 2025/26 was 1.4 — meaning order intake was running roughly 40% ahead of revenue. Order intake reached a record EUR 27.6 billion. Sales grew 7.2% on an organic basis to EUR 19.2 billion.
The gap between those two numbers is not new. But the margin miss has made it visible in a way that investor relations language can no longer absorb. Planned margin expansion was held back by lower production volumes and problems on specific rolling stock contracts, Alstom said. It did not identify which contracts or which plants.
What Sion has committed to — and what remains open
Martin Sion, who became CEO on 1 April 2026, has identified three areas for immediate action: tighter day-to-day project management, reinforced planning discipline, and better coordination across engineering, supply chain and manufacturing.
That is the stated direction. The operational detail behind it will not be public until a Capital Markets Day scheduled for early 2027. Until then, the medium-term margin target of 8–10% remains an ambition without a confirmed timeline.
For FY 2026/27, Alstom is guiding for an adjusted EBIT margin of around 6.5% and car production of 4,400–4,500 units — a modest step forward, not a reset.
Delivery timelines under pressure
For operators and project teams working with Alstom on active rolling stock contracts across Europe, the results release is significant: execution problems on major contracts have now been formally acknowledged at CEO level.
Alstom’s European order book includes contracts in France, Poland, the UK and Serbia signed during FY 2025/26 alone. The company holds an 18.0% gross margin in backlog as of March 2026 — a number that hinges on its ability to execute at scale.
How that execution improves, and at what pace, is the question that will not be answered before early 2027.