German industrial conglomerate Siemens said its order intake fell more than a fifth in its fiscal fourth quarter through September, indicating that recovery is not yet underway.

Chief Financial Officer Joe Kaeser told a webcast investor event in London on Tuesday that orders in the current quarter were about on par with the previous quarter.

Quarterly sales, however, were set to slide less than 10 percent, helped by a backlog of older orders, he added.

He reiterated an outlook for operating income of 6.6 billion euros ($9.6 billion) at its main Industry, Energy and Healthcare divisions in the fiscal full year.

Parts of the company's industrial division, whose products include factory gear and high-speed trains, had seen demand bottom out but a recovery would not be expected before 2011, Kaeser said.

Job cuts at the division were inevitable, he reiterated.

A top executive at U.S. rival General Electric Co had said on September 1 that the largest U.S. conglomerate expected conditions in most of its core markets to remain challenging for the next 12 to 18 months.

Separately, Siemens was still grappling with a slump at its mobile-phone network gear joint venture with Nokia .

The company might have to write down its stake in the unprofitable Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) venture, Kaeser said.

We will tackle the problems actively, he added.

The company's shares fell 2.3 percent to 64.47 euros by 1232 GMT, the leading decliner in the German blue-chip DAX index <.GDAXI>, which was down 0.5 percent.

(Writing by Maria Sheahan and Ludwig Burger; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)