Cargotec Corporation

Welcome to HIAP's first quarter 2026 results call. My name is Haki Vesikallio. I'm from the investor relations team. Today's results will be presented by CEO Scott Phillips and CFO Mikko Puolakko. As a reminder, please pay attention to the disclaimer in the presentation as we will be making forward-looking statements. Before handing over to Scott and Mikko, let's take a look at the highlights of the quarter. Book-to-bill was positive in all three geographical areas. Our sales were still impacted by low order intake in the US during the previous three quarters. However, our comparable operating profit margin increased sequentially to 13.5% and we continue to deliver strong cash flow. The new operating model announced in January was successfully implemented in the beginning of April. We also specified our outlook floor for full year comparable operating profit margin from above 13 to above 13.5. Let's then view today's agenda. First, Scott will present the group level topics. Mikko will go through reporting segments, financials in more detail, and the outlook. After Mikko, Scott will join the stage for key takeaways before the Q&A session. With that, over to you, Scott.

And greetings everyone and a warm welcome to our first earnings report for 2026. I would like to start out sharing three developments highlighting our execution of our profitable growth strategy. So during third quarter earnings report, as you'll recall, we shared our plans to reduce our costs by 20 million euros within this year as a result of the increased uncertainty that has led to a more challenging demand environment in the US, as well as the overall development of the order backlog. Consequently, we have announced plans during quarter to evolve our organizational structure and our operating model targeting to create three positive outcomes. Number one, to evolve to further clarity on our end-to-end accountability through further decentralization by reducing layers of complexity within our overall organizational design. That should help us to attend to a few issues that occasionally come to light in terms of suboptimal customer support. And then third, overall it'll allow us and enable us to reduce our fixed cost in line with our plans, which should create much more improvement in our value creation resiliency. So core to our strategy is our aim to, is our aim to lead the sustainability transition for on-road load handling industry. So I'm really pleased to share the second development here in the execution of our strategy, and that's the fact that we have validation in our science-based targets to achieve our commitment to be net zero by 2050. The third development I would like to share with Pride is another example of a key outcome-based innovation co-created with our distribution partner, Mixa, together with key customers in Spain, aiming to optimize productivity for dump-over column lift tippers by developing a new Dell brand lightweight liftgate. So another great example of our focus on developing new innovations together with our customers and our partners that's purpose-built to solve our customers' most challenging problems. So let's get into the headline results of our group financials for the quarter. So starting off with our order intake development, I'm pleased to see that our organic order intake increased by 7% in constant currencies versus the comparison period. In actual exchange rates, order intake reached a level of 402 million euros or 419 million euros in constant currencies for an 11% positive variance. ING contributed 15 million euros in the quarter, so in line with our business plan. And all regions contributed a solidly positive book to bill, increasing our backlog sequentially. Now, unlike prior periods, we didn't get the advantage of large lumpy orders, as myself and Mikko and Aki have talked about in the past. but rather resulting from a number of increased activities that manifested in smaller order intake or midsize order intake. So no real large orders of note to report within the period. So overall, a good start to the year despite the uncertainty in the macro environment. So let me turn your attention to the regional breakdown of our order intake profile for the quarter. Now, as you can see from the table, we had a growth in all regions with the exception of Asia Pacific. Europe, Middle East and Africa increasing from 203 million to 207 million euros or two percentage points. The Americas grew by 15% from 145 million euros to 166 million euros. And Asia remained relatively flat at 29 million euros compared to 30 million euros in the comparison period. Now, Europe continues to show signs of steady demand growth, which we do see in all businesses, but most notably our lifting solutions. The growth in the Americas was primarily driven by ING acquisition, but at the same time, we certainly did not see further declines in the U.S., Overall, the environment remains highly uncertain with ongoing trade tensions in the U.S. and heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. So let's turn our attention to the revenue results for the quarter. Revenues were down 7% year over year due to the 114 million euros lower order book we started the period with. Now, in line with our expectations that revenues were on the level of €383 million, as you can see on the table on the left-hand side, our rolling 12-month revenues are now converging towards our order intake level of prior periods at €1.528 billion. Now, our share of services and actual exchange rates increased a percentage point due to the decline in equipment sales. However, as Miko will explain, we had a nice increase in service sales in constant currencies, and ING contributed 13 million in sales, or 3%, and currencies overall had a negative impact of 4% on group results. Now, geographically, our share of sales were impacted by the positive order intake development in the second half of 2025 in Europe, while the Americas was negatively impacted by the decline in the US, but partially offset by ING. Now, in addition to the increase in Europe, our Asia Pacific region was also slightly up, improving to 26 million euros or 7% year over year. And I'm pleased to see the development of our Echo portfolio sales as they increased by 23% to 176 million euros or 46% of sales overall. Now, with our year over year decline in sales, our comparable operating profit was negatively impacted, so I'll guide you through the numbers. For the period, we delivered 52 million euros on sales of 383, which is 22% decline versus the comparison period, but all in all, a good start to the year. On a relative basis, the group was on a level of 13.5% versus 16% last year. Now, the factors most impacting comparability were lower sales in the U.S., lower indirect cost affecting gross profit, and lower fixed cost affecting operating profit. Now, consequently, our operative return on capital employed declined due to the reduction of profit, items affecting comparability, and the ING acquisition. Now, Mika will further guide you through the bridge. Now, wrapping up on our quarterly check-in for how we are performing versus our long-range targets, our 10-year CAGR is now at 5%. Versus our long-range targets of 16% comparable operating profit, our last 12 months is at 13%. And versus our long-range target of greater than 25%, we're in line at 27%, albeit a decline sequentially for the factors that I shared earlier. So with that, I would like to turn stage over to Miko to share with you results for the reporting segments.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning also from my side. Let's start first with the equipment segments performance in quarter one. So the equipment orders were 284 million euros during the quarter. This is 10% increase year on year. But if we exclude the currency impact, the growth would have been 14%, so in constant currencies. Lifting equipment grew very nicely. Growth came mainly from Americas, like elaborated already by Scott, very much driven by the ING grains acquisitions. The delivery equipment orders were flat year on year. I would say that taking into account the market situation in the US and the fact that we did not book any major key account or defense orders during the quarter, I would say that the equipment segment performed well in terms of orders during quarter one. Sales were 266 million euros. This is minus 9% year on year. And again, if we exclude the currency impact, the decline would have been minus 6%. Lifting equipment actually grew in all three geographies, and the decline in sales is coming solely from our delivery equipment, especially in the US market. The U.S. decline is very much due to the past quarters below one book to bill caused by the volatile tariff environment and the delayed decision making by the U.S. customers. Equipment comparable operating profit was 32 million euros or the margin 12.1%. And the biggest driver for the lower profitability was the decline in the delivery equipment sales in the US. Like I mentioned earlier, equipment profitability was very much impacted by the lower sales, as can be seen in the bridge on the right hand side. Lower sales affected the cross-profit margin, as the cross-profit margin includes also fixed production overheads, so the factory overheads. We had a slight positive impact coming from the lower SG&A costs, but I would say that the cost savings from the early announced €20 million cost savings program are not yet visible in our Q1 results. Then let's have a look on service performance. I would say that currencies had a significant impact on services, orders and sales during Q1. Service orders were 119 million euros. With constant currencies, actually service orders would have grown 4%. Sales was 117 million euros. And again, with constant currencies, growth would be plus 5%. So in absolute terms and in constant currencies, services quarter one revenues would be 123 million euros. Really nice development in our recurring services like spare parts and maintenance. Those sales grew in Q1. However, installation services sales declined. So I would say that the recurring services growth was able to offset really nicely both the currency headwinds as well as the decline in the installation services. The number of connected equipment and maintenance contracts also continue to grow in quarter one. So really, really nice performance in executing also the services strategy. Services profitability was stable at 28 million euros or the margin 23.6%. If we look at the services bridge on the right hand side, services sales growth would have been actually 6 million euros with constant currencies instead of the 1 million decline as we have reported. Recurring services growth very much offsetting the decline in installation services and then the negative FX impact mainly coming from the weaker US dollars offsets the volume growth. Next, let's have a look on HIAP's total financials. The overall HIAP profitability decline came from equipment volumes, as you were able to see from the previous bridges. Lower volumes affected the cross-profit margin, as the cross-profit includes fixed production overheads. Our SG&A costs were stable in constant currencies. Like mentioned, the cost savings program effects are not yet visible in quarter one. Those start to be more visible in the second half of this year. Currencies had a notable impact on quarter one profitability, mostly stemming from the weaker US dollar. We booked 11 million euros restructuring costs during quarter one as items affecting comparability. So this is below the comparable operating profit. These items affecting comparability, they are related to the ongoing 20 million euros cost savings program, headcount reduction, including also the Zeppro tail lift production move from Sweden to Poland. And our quarter one tax rate was 26%. Our cash generation continued on a very good level, in total 75 million euros in quarter one. The cash conversion was really high, 186%. Our inventories decreased slightly, but I would say that the main contribution to our cash flow was coming from the networking capital, like accounts receivable decline and the VAT receivables collection. So those were the main contributors to quarter one cash flow. HIAP has a very, very strong balance sheet with the net cash of 219 million euros at the end of March. Our gearing was stable at minus 23%. And thinking the target to keep our gearing below the 50% threshold, this would allow us to raise more than 700 million euros debt. really strong balance sheet to execute the inorganic growth strategy. We paid the 75 million euros dividend in April the 2nd, so the dividend payment is not yet visible in our quarter one numbers. And then on the right hand side chart, you can see that we have only one major debt item. That's the 150 million euros bond, which is maturing in quarter three this year. And today we have also revised or specified our outlook for the 2026 based on a very good start for the year. So we estimate that the comparable operating profit margin for this year exceeds 13.5%. This is up from the earlier above 13% what we announced in February. The key assumptions behind this outlook are more or less unchanged what we said in February. We expect EMEA to continue to grow. USA not further declining from the previous quarters. However, the customer decision making continues to be still slow and difficult to predict. 2026 has started with 114 million euros lower order book. Also the March 26 order book was almost 40 million euros lower than what we had a year ago. We have factored in the outlook also the 20 million euros cost savings materializing in 2026, as mentioned, mainly effective from second half onwards. And then our group admin underlying costs would be more or less on 2025 level, plus then approximately 5 million euros investments in process and systems development, mostly in the second half this year. So with those words, then I would hand the word back to Scott, please.

Thank you, Miko. So just closing with a few key takeaways summarizing the quarter. I'd say first and foremost, we certainly continue to see a gradual recovery in the lifting equipment in Europe, Middle East, Africa, which is great to see. Our delivery equipment market in the US is expected to be in a cyclical trough. Third key takeaway is we are on track to achieve our 20 million euros lower cost level in 2026 versus the prior year. We continue to nicely execute on our profitable growth strategy with a keen focus on where we can take advantage of opportunistic growth. As Miko mentioned, our strong cash flow and balance sheet position us nicely to catalyze growth in the coming periods. And we're really pleased to see the solid good start to the year in 2026. So with that, I'll turn it back over to Haki.

Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Mikko. With that, we are ready to start the Q&A session.

Please. If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Auntie Kansanen from Seb. Please go ahead.

Good morning, gentlemen, and thanks for taking my questions. And I'll start with a bit of a long winding one on the U.S. demand. I mean, backing out kind of your America's orders, the FX impacts and the acquisition impact, it still looks quite good. Organic order growth for the quarter. Then again, if we look at kind of the quarter, your flag increased geopolitical uncertainty. There was a bit of a back and forth on the Section 232 tariffs and things like that. So how would you kind of describe the demand environment that you saw on the first quarter? Did you start to see a gradual recovery in some sense or is it kind of the heightened uncertainties adding kind of an extra layer of slower decision making versus what you kind of saw going into the quarter?

Yeah. Hey, good morning, Auntie, and thank you for the question. Just starting that one off. In the U.S., I think one of the key factors to note is that there was a bigger impact towards the second half of Q1 last year, impacting both of our at-scale delivery solutions business within the U.S., so we're coming off of I'd call it a relatively low comp. So therefore, I'd say that was a driver in terms of the positive variance that you see slightly in the US year over year. But on the other hand, I'd say from the combination of still the factors that existed prior to the trade tensions and then subsequent to the trade tensions, And even with the geopolitical unrest notwithstanding, we are seeing a bit of stability, albeit as Aki characterized and Miko as well, that the decision-making is still on a similar level in terms of customers being cautious. Having said that, I think it boded quite nicely for us in the quarter that similar to what we saw here in EMEA, the composition of the order profile in the period was more skewed towards smaller midsize type orders. So the overall activity level was quite strong. And I'd characterize the sales funnel within the quarter also nicely positive variance compared to last year. Having said that we still have the same level of uncertainty we have the added variable of geopolitical unrest so therefore we're trying to stay quite balanced in terms of managing expectations that which is why we made the note of where we think we're in a situation where we don't see it imminently getting worse and so therefore I think there's a potential to be stable to slightly improving. And certainly you see that supported nicely in some of the reports from the truck OEMs. And then as has been noted in some of the analysts' reports, there will be a bit of a lag in terms of the impact for our business compared to what you see at the truck OEMs. So the factors at least are lining up to be, I think, skewed more positive versus negative.

right and then specifically on the changes on the section 232 tariffs start of april uh what's your analysis on are there any impacts on your clients in terms of truck prices or costs and also what's the direct impact to your specific yeah the impact to the change in the tariff code certainly has a negative impact from the customer perspective and that the the cost level goes up

uh somewhat and and so we've run through all the the analytics and and the math and we've revised our our price model vis-a-vis the surcharge as a consequence so our customers will certainly see that i don't see it at a level where there would be an eminent negative impact compared to the current demand environment but certainly a an additional factor to consider on behalf of our customers in terms of deploying the budgeted capital within the year And then as we have highlighted in some of the past periods, one of the key changes that we did see in the U.S. was a tendency to move away from providing longer term view of demand and capital allocation and rather going to more shorter demand horizons, if you will, in terms of quarter by quarter or biannual, if you will. So we still see that trend continuing.

And then kind of talking about pricing and surcharges, how much would you say that the US orders in Q1 benefited from pricing in terms of year-over-year basis?

Yeah, the US orders benefited approximately 10 million euros from the surcharges during quarter one.

All right. That's very clear. And then just the housekeeping question on the savings program on the 20 million. So would I model it correctly if I kind of add a full run rate impact for Q4? So it's a little bit of a benefit on Q3 and then in a similar fashion first half of next year as well. On a year-over-year basis.

Yeah, I'd say that's about right. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Thanks so much.

Yeah. The next question comes from Panu Leighton-Mackey from Dansky Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I would have two questions around the guidance. So firstly, what kind of triggers the upgrade? I mean, is it that you now have more visibility towards the end of the year or was Q1 or what you see in the market better than you were expecting? And then the second one is what are you expecting for the US market for the rest of the year in Europe?

If you want to take the first part, I'll take the second part.

So basically what triggered the specified new outlook is that we had of course a solid start for the year and we have now basically three months better visibility for the year. We don't see in customers' behavior at the moment any change. So those are basically the elements which basically made us to slightly specify the outlook from the above 13.5.

Yeah, and just adding one more to that one, Pano, is also the view that Europe continues on the positive glide path that we've seen. so better visibility to the order to the order book now as we have an additional three months coverage positive variance to the start of the year versus expectation or plan and then the continued good development Europe and offset of course by a more or less stable situation in the U.S. okay then you had the second part of your question was with regards to the U.S. demand yes Yeah. So in terms of U.S. demand, just to reiterate prior comments, we certainly see the similar factors coming into the year that we did for the second half of last year, where you had the environment where there was already a bit of a slower level of decision making or let's say a longer time horizon to deploy capital based on changes in the in the cost levels and the inability of our customers to know let's say upon the time of taking possession of the equipment you know what their forward-looking cost curves would look like so then naturally you would if you could delay the decision making until you had better visibility there We see that continuing within the year. Having said that, we did see a bit of recovery, of course, in the delivery solution business in the U.S. And activity level bodes well as the composition of the order intake was, again, rather than being skewed towards a few lumpy key account orders, but rather a number of small to midsize orders. The key account orders are also still in the pipeline. So overall, we see a situation where we feel a bit more comfortable given that we still have a lack of coverage to the end of the year, which then will further clarify potentially in line with our Q2 earnings report. But for now, given those three factors that I talked about earlier and this U.S. situation that we think is on quite a stable level or we don't see it eminently declining, supported by the data that we're seeing with the truck OEMs, key factor for us to be able to bump up the outlook for the year slightly.

Okay, thank you. My final question is on the European market. So it continues to recover, but could you kind of tell a bit more like which segments are looking better for you and what about construction, which I understood has been still slow, but do you see anything up there?

Yeah, for us, the quick answer on the construction side is not yet. But what we do see is we see a pickup on special logistics, a bit of infrastructure, a little bit of retail last mile. But significantly, of course, in our waste and recycling segment. somewhat offset by a slight decline in the defense logistics, as it's a consequence of timing of fulfilling past very large orders that were won in the past, and then the fulfillment schedule is starting to wind down a bit. Overall picture, with the exception of construction, is all moving somewhat in the positive direction and somewhat steady. We're not seeing big swings period over period or sequentially within the quarter, but rather a nice steady improvement.

All right. Thank you.

The next question comes from Michael Dople from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Just starting off, following up on the EMEA question there. Any specific countries you would like to flag here that are looking particularly strongly or seeing some kind of improvement, maybe some early signs into Q2? Or any specifics you could add there?

Yeah, if you think about our demand environment in Europe, it very much follows along with the countries that have the highest or the most at scale GDPs. And those were certainly the countries that had the most positive variance for us within the Europe, Middle East, Africa region. So, of course, UK, France, Germany, Benelux, France, Spain, all were nicely positive.

Okay. No, that's clear. And then also coming back to what you mentioned on defense, how would you describe the pipeline there currently? And also maybe a specification, did you book any orders there in Q1? And then, you know, the pipeline and potential, how you see it going forward?

Mikael, was your question concerning Middle East or... Because the line was a bit... No, no.

On defense. On defense, yes. I was asking, did you book any orders related to that segment in Q1? And also, how would you describe the pipeline and potential here going forward?

Yeah, quick answer. Yes, we did. Albeit, I'd say overall, there was a slight negative variance on the defense orders from the comparison period. Pipeline looks really healthy. And as we've called out in the past, challenging to call the timing of converting the orders but but hermione frank the team are doing a great job managing the pipeline and we feel really good about how we're positioned to convert the pipeline the question is around the timing the defense orders were roughly four percent of the total order intake in quarter one so as we have said earlier they are

a bit lumpier than the kind of typical commercial orders, so from quarter to quarter it might fluctuate a bit, but like Scott said, solid pipeline and something to come most probably later this year, so yeah.

Okay, now that's fair. And then just finally on the M&A, I think Mikko mentioned the 700 minutes firepower here.

how would you describe the pipeline i mean which which reagents would you say are most active right now and what are the key hurdles to get to get the deals done yeah so i had certain let me start i'll take that question um pipeline is quite active um as we have consistently called out in the past of course it's always all a matter of timing Our focus is in line with our focus segments. Similarly, from a geographic perspective, I'd say there's an active pipeline, of course, both in both of our core markets, both within Europe as well as the Americas. And of course, that that's a critical area of focus for us. At the same time, we continue to look for opportunities to help us scale quicker in regions where we're where we're subscale. And so we still like the APAC region and are investing a lot of time and expense in analyzing, understanding the opportunities in that part of the world. And similarly, we still see opportunities in Latin America as well.

Okay. And then just to follow up, I mean, what would you say are kind of the key hurdles to get this done? Is it evaluation? question more or something else that's kind of, what are the kind of the key key kind of things being discussed?

Yeah, yeah. Sorry for just to give you a bit of context and around the history. So the first key factor was just needing to work our way through the merger and then the demerger process. as we were certainly constrained for good reasons to take actions during those years. So post completion of the demerger, then the key constraint really has just been a matter of timing of working the processes.

Okay. Okay. That's great. Thank you very much.

Yeah. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Auntie Kansanen from Seb. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my follow-up, which would be on the U.S. distributor. So, Scott, maybe could you talk a little bit about where you are with this kind of a growth strategy, adding the distributor network or expanding the distributor network in the U.S. and expanding geographically? And what type of revenue potential should we think about from these actions in the next, let's say, 12 to 24 months. I mean, if the demand in the US is starting to bottom out, I guess, the fact that you have a wider distributor network today than, let's say, a year ago, would add a little bit of a bigger potential for you going forward.

yeah thank you very much for the follow-up question auntie i'd love to provide some color on this follow-up so quite pleased with where we are relative to executing on our growth strategy in north america vis-a-vis activating a hybrid model whereas in the past we were almost entirely direct with the exception of our princeton branded truck mounted forklifts so over the past two years We've activated 16 new dealers. Of course, very much back-end loaded towards that time period. So great companies at scale. For the first time, it gives us real coverage in all 48 contiguous United States. And so that's a key milestone for us. And then I'd say number two, and I couldn't emphasize this one enough, that the quality... And capability within these dealers is extremely good and proud that they that they've elected to, you know, work together with us as real partners and and they're going to certainly help our overall growth strategy as well as to develop the overall brand in the US. Now, having said that, we're in the mode of developing and going through the training and activating the dealers. And so that's a bit of a step-by-step process. Hard to exactly characterize the amount of positive variance, certainly within this year, but we expect some positive variance to our order intake development in the U.S. as a consequence. And over the time series, if I think about 27, 28 and beyond, then that should steadily pick up. We believe that we'll end up somewhere around 20 to 22 distributors overall. So we still are in the process also of adding new dealers in. areas where either we're under covered and or we're looking for the capability be it for a lifting solution or a delivery solution as some of our dealers are quite specialized and others are more generalists covering the whole portfolio.

Is there any way for me to kind of compare from revenue potential wise a 20 to 22 versus your prior direct model, kind of how much does it expand the addressable market or how much kind of the dollar revenue potential would it give you down the road when all are fully activated and selling your equipment?

yeah difficult yeah on the spot no probably i can but however as we work progress through subsequent periods and of course as we certainly have touch points with all of all of you that cover our business we certainly would be able to start to give better and better color on just that point all right looking forward to that thank you yeah

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.

Okay, thank you for the telephone conference questions. We have at least one question from the iPad. This one is related to the German infrastructure package. Did we see any impacts in the quarter? How would you characterize the situation or the stimulus money from the German infrastructure package? Is it visibility better, the same, or worse than in the beginning of the year?

Well, certainly better visibility compared to the beginning of the year. Timing-wise, I'd say too early yet. But we do anticipate having nice opportunities in the future, and we're starting to get visibility in the opportunity funnel.

Great. How about then the supply chain? Do we see any constraints, especially in the hydraulics or electronics? I think this must be related to the Middle East situation.

it honestly a great question and it gives me an opportunity to put the spotlight for a second on our supply chain teams i think they've done a great job both in terms of our factories and in collaboration with our sourcing team so really pleased to share that no impact now that picture of course looks a lot like the duck on top of the water but of course below the surface there's a lot of activity behind the scenes, both internal to HIAB, but also in our partner network, vis-a-vis our suppliers, as well as the logistic shipping companies. But overall, no negative impact within the quarter. But a lot of organizational bandwidth has been redirected to make sure that we secure and stabilize the overall supply chain.

Indeed. And then the next one here is that, do we see any potential considering new trade agreements between Europe and South America, or then potentially, how about India? Do we see any potential there? Will this lead to high-ups, new equipment, production service units in the medium term, impacting sales year-on-year growth rate in these regions? Any color you could provide?

Yeah, we haven't seen yet any impact at this point as a consequence of the new trade agreements. However, I would say that markets such as India are a great example of those that we are constantly pulsing and checking for, you know, what's the right opportunity for us to better participate in the market? Is that an import opportunity or is it a produce local opportunity? And certainly I anticipate that a market such as this will play a key and ever increasingly important role in the future of our business.

Thanks. And I think we have still some more questions from the telephone line. So let's turn back to the moderator.

The next question comes from Michael Dopel from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. Just very briefly, a question around your service business. Just talk a bit about how you see the environment there and the dynamics there. I mean, where are we currently on the spare parts capture rate? And how do you see the kind of the overall growth here going forward?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the question, Mikael. In terms of the services business, what I would still say is that Mikael and his team are progressively working towards better and better partnership training and development of how to, one, make sure that as a result of having new or current activated connected units, that that gives us great control then over the install base which is the first key factor and that's why that's one of the critical KPIs that we track relentlessly each period. Then that enables to have the dialogue of converting the management of those assets in the install base wrapped around ProCare contracts that we do both for direct as well as through indirect. And we know that we have a significantly different outcome of capture rate and revenue per unit on those units that are captured in ProCare. And the good news is that our net promoter score and feedback from the customers are on a significantly higher level as well. So the team is doing a good job getting better and better control of the overall installed base. But it'll take time as given the top line split between what we sell direct versus indirect. The biggest opportunity for us is to continue to increase the share of capture on the indirect sales side. And so a lot of good progress is being made there. Overall, in terms of the capture rate versus what we shared in 2024, we continue to step by step make good improvements sequentially and throughout each period. The The limiting factor so far potentially, and this is a bit of opinion as it's quite variable, is then around the utilization rates of the equipment. And we have seen a lot of variability through the period where some periods, some geographies is up and some within the same geographies may be down. And that might have a bit of a factor. if I think about the past two years. Moving forward, our expectation is that given the age of the installed base, the replacement rate should continue to increase. And at the same time, the level of service events or the frequency of the service events should get slightly increasing as well, which bodes well for our recurring revenue business. So overall good progress there. When we come back on our next capital markets day, we'll give a lot more color on how we're progressing relative to the three KPIs that we shared in 24, as well as the overall capture rate. And I'd say the last comment I would add is I think I did share in either Q3 or even in February in the Q4 earnings, our share of recurring revenue is now on quite a good level at around 75%, 76% level. All right.

That's a great comment. Thank you very much.

Yeah. The next question comes from Tom Skogman from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I know you have sensors installed in your equipment. Can you open up a bit what you see, how customers are using the equipment, you know, sequentially, year on year, and between different geographies? What can you read about your customers from this?

Yeah, hey, good morning, Tom. We get quite a lot of data-driven insights off of our connected equipment and really pleased by the fact that we are able to provide condition-based monitoring services so we can see any number of data points from the amount of how they're being utilized, the time under load, the type of loads, whether it's overload, under load, time in idle, even if an operator's not buckled the seat belt and attended to some of the basic requirements around safe operations. So a whole host of variables that we're able to see relative to most of the units that we have connected. And then quite pleased to tell you that at least before the end of the year, you'll start to also see quite a nice uptick in connected units in our tail lift business as well.

But what do you see in customer activity, like in the U.S., where we have this kind of most kind of uncertain demand situation? Do you see positive signs in how customer equipment is used, for instance,

Sorry, now I understand a little better than what you're getting at there, Tom. So in terms of utilization, we see quite a lot of variability. I'd say overall, we don't see any real negative or positive trends. But some periods, utilization or activity levels are up. And then in the next period, it might be down. So overall, I'd call it quite stable. And I'd say it roughly applies here in Europe as well. In some periods, it's trending more positive, and then in another period, it will trend slightly negative.

All right. And then about your M&A pipeline, do you have any targets you would like to share, how many companies you would like to acquire this year, or how much sales you would like to add through an M&A in one year or three years period or so?

Yeah, I mean, I'll stick to my same answer as before. You know, I think that given we're a business configured of six divisions and a number of business units. I would love to get to a steady state where we're able to do a bolt on at least one per year, per division, per business unit. And similarly, if you think about then the composition of our business, managing one or two more transformative or let's say business unit or division size acquisitions per year would be a great steady state to get to. to go from where we are to that steady state, then it's going to take some time as we now are, what, nine months or so into being able to now action opportunities that we were constrained to action until we completed the demerger. So we'll also share a lot more color on that as we progress towards our next capital markets day.

And when is the next capital market day?

We haven't set the date yet, but we will share that as soon as we do.

But it's already this year you plan to have it?

Yeah, my sense is it's likely to be in 27. Not yet decided then.

Yeah. And perhaps, you know, a bit more on this service sales target. You have 700 million euros as a target. I realize this downturn probably was a bit steeper and longer than you expected. But just, you know, on a general level, how do you feel about this? Because, I mean, that would really demand exceptional sales CAGR to reach that number.

Yeah, you're exactly right. There is that element, if you think about the, especially on the non-recurring revenue piece there is a significant element there of when does the equipment demand recover relative to the way we modeled the demand curve in q4 23 when we established the current um or strategy period so so a lot will be understood depending upon how the balance of this year and the beginning of 27 plays out of course

But of course, one should still, if we think quarter one service development, so sales up by 5% with constant currencies. At the same time, we saw a decline in the installation services. So if the installation services, i.e. new equipment sales, then attached with the installation sales would improve, then that would, of course, have had in this quarter a nice further addition to service revenues.

And then finally, these new U.S. distributors, do they wish that you would expand your product portfolio to some certain direction?

I think at this point, too early to tell. They're still in the mode of getting themselves up and running on understanding the full scope of the portfolio that they're responsible for, how to work within our processes and systems and with the support staff that's available to them. But I am confident that as we look forward, they will certainly and frequently share insights where they see that we have opportunities to fill gaps within the portfolio. But at this point, I'd say it's too early.

Okay, thank you.

The next question comes from Auntie Kansanen from Seb. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi, thanks. Just a quick follow up on the U.S. order side. I mean, I just wanted to get a reminder, like last year, your America's orders declined by 14 percent on Euro basis. But I'm sure that there was a pricing contributor on a positive side. So how much the volumes last year declined or how much your pricing was up with the surcharges and all of that during 2015?

The surcharge impact, if I recall correctly, was something like between 20-30 million euros for last year. A bit less than 30 million euros, around 25.

Do you have any view on how much the volumes are currently, the order volumes are below, let's say, what you booked on 24, which was kind of the previous peak?

You mean in the US?

In the US, just trying to kind of think about that if there's a recovery on the market, what is kind of the upside in terms of your order intake, given that your prices are quite much higher now than they were a few years back?

Of course, it's good to remember that these surcharges are something which, I mean, they change all the time as tariffs change. So, of course, depends on the tariff landscape, whether one can use that as a, let's say, permanent price increase or we have communicated to the customers that the tariffs will, if the tariffs change, then the surcharge will change. Correct. But all in all, last year, roughly that 25 million, let's say, impact in the order intake. It's a bit difficult because there are so many different products in the US market. There are tail lifts, loader cranes, truck mounted forklifts. So one cannot count those together. It's like calculating apples and bananas together. So from that point of view, it's a bit difficult to say the volume impact.

Sure, I mean, it's a simplification, but it seems like the pricing had a mid-single-digit impact, and then that would kind of suggest almost 20% down on volume. Correct.

That's the right way to think about it. Overall, the biggest impact is coming from the customer's overall demand. The pricing having a quite small impact.

Absolutely. Thank you.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers.

Yeah, let's still take a couple of questions from the iPad. So firstly on the services. So do we always nowadays offer a service agreement when we sell a new piece of equipment? And what is our hit ratio with the service agreements with new equipment sales?

A quick answer to that is that's certainly our expectation, that it's one of our key strengths. And certainly if I think about the 50 or 60 customer meetings that I have a year, that's usually the first topic of conversation is services and the availability of the services, proximity to install base, and the high need to secure uptime as most of our customers are understanding that they're paying a premium on the margin in order to secure the service outcomes that they need to keep them going. So therefore, it's critical for us to offer the services concurrent with the opportunity to sell a new piece of equipment. The hit rate or let's say the attachment rate of the service contract varies depending upon region. So I would kind of come back to Miko's comment earlier. It's a bit, it's not a great metric if you just aggregate it all together and say here's our percentage of attachment because it's much higher in certain areas depending upon how we're configured. with our own organization and the personnel that we have, but it varies. I'd say that overall, I can say that this is one of the key opportunities for us to continue to not only drive our services business, but more importantly, a key factor for us to increase our Net Promoter Score customer satisfaction. So the teams are working quite diligently together and with our partners to ensure that we feel like we have all the tools, processes, and capability and training in order to not only offer the services but then most importantly to execute successfully in delivering against those service contracts.

Then we have two more questions. I think these are quite quick ones. The first one is on the M&A, any preferences in geographical regions? I think you, Scott, already mentioned that we like EMEA, Americas, our key regions, but we also seek for opportunities in the APAC region. So that was the answer. already. And then the final one, which one of you remembers the numbers? How large a proportion is the US out of our America sales? Of course, we provide on an annual basis the North American sales, but we don't split the US separately. But of course, it's a significant share out of the Americas and also on the North American side.

Yeah, I don't remember now the exact percentage, but I would say US is the majority of the Americas revenues.

Exactly.

Yeah. A very high percentage.

Yeah. And of course, for this year, the rest of the Americas is somewhat higher due to the ING acquisition impact. So the Brazil market is proportionally higher than last year. Yeah. Okay, that then concludes our Q&A session. Thank you for the great questions and for the great answers. We will be back with our second quarter results on the 22nd of July, so stay tuned. Thank you.