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The summer holidays are just around the corner: millions of cars, motorcycles and buses will soon be traveling daily over Europe’s popular north-south highways. According to the Swiss traffic census, in July 2009, roughly 1.3 million vehicles passed through the Alps to vacation spots in the South via the country’s Gotthard, San Bernardino, Great St. Bernhard and Simplon tunnels alone. Siemens traffic systems support vacationers over thousands of kilometers. The company’s advanced control systems help reduce the number of traffic jams by automatically adjusting traffic guidance systems to changing traffic volumes and weather conditions. Fewer jams means safer travel, a cleaner environment and lower costs: according to the Federation of German Industries, clogged roads cost over €100 billion a year in Germany alone. Innovative technologies help optimize traffic flow guidance. Since Siemens equipped Austria’s autobahns with an intelligent traffic information and control system, there have been 40 percent fewer accidents. Travel times have also been sharply reduced. This is just one of the ways in which Siemens traffic systems are making holiday travel on Europe’s highways safer, more secure and more comfortable.

Siemens AG has concluded two groundbreaking agreements with Russian partners and thereby strengthened its business in Russia, a key growth market. Siemens has launched a strategic cooperation with the grid operator Federal Grid Company (FGC) to upgrade Russian power grids through the use of energy-efficient power highways and smart grid technologies. To strengthen Siemens’ position in Russia’s natural gas market, the joint venture LCC Russian Turbo Machinery has been established with the Russian partner ZAO Iskra-Avigaz. Siemens is the majority shareholder in the joint venture. The two partners are investing a total of about €60 million. As part of the joint venture, plans call for producing compressors for gas pipelines in the Russian city of Perm. The first compressors, which are intended primarily for the major customer Gazprom, are scheduled for delivery as early as 2011. Both partnerships underscore the Russian energy market’s major strategic significance for Siemens.

Following the successful expansion of the compliance system at Siemens, the Chief Compliance Officer, Andreas Pohlmann, is moving to Ferrostaal AG, where he will become a member of the Management Board. “Andreas Pohlmann has performed a great service for our company. We wish him every success in his new duties at Ferrostaal. Regardless of personnel changes, compliance remains the highest priority at Siemens,” said General Counsel Peter Y. Solmssen, member of the Managing Board responsible for Corporate Legal and Compliance. Solmssen will serve as acting Chief Compliance Officer until a successor is picked.

Siemens showed pioneering achievements in electromobility at an exceptional event held at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. The company presented for the first time an exact replica of the historic “Electric Victoria” – an electric car that was used in Berlin as an elegant hotel taxi beginning in 1905. The event also highlighted modern electric cars, an electric motorcycle, charging stations and other exhibits offering a look at the present and future of electromobility. Siemens demonstrated the interrelationship among renewable energies, smart grids and electric cars as temporary power storage units. “Siemens is holding this event to support efforts by the federal government to showcase Germany as the leading market for electromobility at the upcoming electromobility summit on May 3. Siemens is the technology partner for developing cars and infrastructure into a sustainable system for electromobility,” explained Wolfgang Dehen, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of the Energy Sector. At the event, many visitors were able to enjoy test drives in the historic and modern electric cars.

Siemens will further develop its healthcare business, effective May 1, in order to more effectively exploit market and growth potential. With a stronger focus on the different market segments, the various Healthcare Sector customer groups will be even better served. “We have developed our healthcare business very successfully in recent years and are extremely well positioned relative to our competitors. Backed by this strong position, we intend to use our innovative strength to take advantage of further growth opportunities,” said Hermann Requardt, CEO of the Siemens Healthcare Sector. Above-average growth potential is offered both by the emerging markets and the close interconnection of imaging and therapy. In the future, the Healthcare Sector will still consist of three divisions. Moreover, sales and service will be bundled in one unit. The hearing aid business will be independently managed and directly report to the Sector CEO, enabling it to respond more flexibly in this extremely consumer-oriented business. These structural changes were presented today to employee representatives in the Committee for Economic Policy.

Siemens again showed outstanding profitability in the second quarter of fiscal 2010, increasing net income 48 percent year-over-year, to €1.5 billion. Total Sectors profit rose 16 percent to around €2.1 billion. Siemens subsequently raised its profit forecast and now expects Total Sectors profit to exceed the prior-year level of around €7.5 billion. “Siemens has again demonstrated its profitability impressively. In this regard we are profiting in particular from measures we initiated early on to strengthen our competitiveness,” said Peter Löscher, President and CEO of Siemens AG. “In times of crisis we very intentionally maintained our innovation power and are asserting our strength in the market. We expect Total Sectors profit above the prior-year level.”