Siemens Q4 net profit drops

German industrial conglomerate Siemens' net profit dropped in its fourth quarter.

The company said it is however optimistic cost-cutting measures will help boost its bottom line in 2014.

According to news.com.au, Siemens reported a fourth-quarter net profit of 1.07 billion euros on Thursday, down from 1.19 billion euros in the same quarter last year.

Revenues declined to 21.17 billion euros from 21.44 billion in the quarter.

Siemens said its profit was hurt by 688 million euros in charges for its 'Siemens 2014' cost cutting programme, which cost 1.28 billion dollars for the year, the report said.

Siemens runs its business year from October to September.

According to the report, in the 12 months to September 2013, the company's revenues slipped by 1.0 percent to 75.882 billion euros.

New orders however rose by 10 percent to 82.351 billion euros and net profit climbed by 3.2 percent to 4.284 billion euros.

In the fourth quarter alone, orders and revenues were up 3.0 percent, but net profit fell by 11.6 percent.

Separately, Siemens said it planned to carry out a share buy-back of up to 4.0 billion euros within the next up to 24 months, the report added.