Alstom has announced a 23% rise in earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) for its last financial year, on the back of a record commercial performance in orders received and backlogs cleared.

The adjusted EBIT for the financial year ending March 31 stood at €366 million, the company said, leading to an adjusted EBIT margin of 5.3%.

The value of orders received and backlogs cleared during the period stood at €10.6 billion and €30.4 billion respectively. Over the same period, sales were up 12% (7% organically), amounting to €6.9 billion.

The company reported a net income of €3.0 billion while net debt decreased significantly to €0.2 billion compared to €3.1 billion in the previous year. Equity amounted to €3.3 billion at 31 March 2016.

Henri Poupart-Lafarge, Alstom’s chairman and CEO, said: “The year 2015-16 is the second record commercial year in a row for Alstom and includes a major e-Locos project in India and successes across all regions and product lines. Sales growth exceeded expectations with above 5% average organic growth over the past four years. The adjusted EBIT was up by over 20%. And the balance sheet was strengthened by transactions with General Electric.”

Among the commercial highlights Alstom announced for the period under review was a major contract for electric locomotives and associated maintenance in India of about €3.2 billion. Other commercial successes were registered in all regions including Pendolino trains with maintenance in Italy, regional trains in Belgium, Germany, France and Algeria, maintenance of Kazakh locomotives, locomotives in Azerbaijan, metro systems in Panama and metro in India, as well as signalling systems in India, Hong Kong, Canada and the United Kingdom.