German engineering giant Siemens pledged Wednesday to expand its renewables business, after posting a set of results that it deemed" convincing".

Revenues climbed 5.0 percent to almost 19 billion euros ($22 billion) in the second quarter, while orders rose 7.0 percent to 22.3 billion euros, boosted by large contracts from Britain and Egypt for several power stations.

Siemens, which builds a wide variety of products that range from gas turbines to trains to medical equipment, said however that its profit for quarter ending March slumped by half to 1.44 billion euros.

But this was due to an exceptionally high base of comparison a year ago as results in the second quarter of2014/2015 were artificially boosted by key divestments.

"We delivered another convincing

performance in the second quarter, compared to both the prioryear and our industry sector," said the group's chief executive Joe Kaeser.

"Despite ongoing challenges in the market environment, we will continue to focus rigorously on profitable growth," he added, as the group looks to reap the fruits of several years of restructuring.

Yet the group is still undergoing changes as Siemens has signalled its ambition to bring about consolidation in the highly competitive renewables sector, in particular in the area of wind energy.

Rumours have been swirling that the group is looking to buy Spain's Gamesa to form the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer, a plan that has never been officially confirmed by Siemens.

But the operation appears to have hit a key stumbling block over a joint venture between Gamesa and France's Areva, a direct competitor of Siemens.