Konecranes Plc Ord

Hello all and welcome to follow Conecranes Q3 2025 results webcast. My name is Linda Häkkilä. I'm the VP investor relations here at Conecranes. And with me today as our main speakers, we have our president and CEO, Marko Tulokas and our CFO, Teo Ottola. Before we proceed, I would like to remind you about the disclaimer, as we might be making forward looking statements. Here you can see our agenda for today. We will first start with a presentation from our CEO and he will give us a market update and guide us through the group performance. After that, our CFO, Teo Ottola, will guide us through the business area performance and talk about the balance sheet topics. Before we start with the Q&As, our CEO will still summarize the main points of the quarter. But now, without any further comments, I would like to hand over to our CEO.

Thank you very much, Linda. I'd like to start by saying that I'm extremely pleased with our performance in quarter three and throughout the year 2025. ConnectGrain's team delivered a very strong quarter in continuation to our solid half year performance under the prevailing market conditions. This is an excellent achievement. This is With this kind of market uncertainty, an order intake growth of 23% year on year is a very good start for the quarter three or is a very good quarter three. Our demand environment has remained stable despite the market uncertainty and our sales teams have been able to close well despite the timing related hesitation. Our orders are up now by 23% year on year in comparable currencies, and our order increased more than 7%, order book increase, sorry. The order intake increased in all business areas. Our sales amounted to nearly 1 billion euros in the third quarter. This means a decrease of 5.5% year on year in comparable currencies. Despite the decrease in sales, we reached a record high EBITDA margin of 16.7%. That is an increase from second quarter level of 14.3%. Our profitability in the third quarter was supported by good execution as well as some one-off items. We will go through the performance per business area later in this presentation. The next, I will again go through some boards to our general market environment. Let's start with our industrial segments. In general, our demand environment remained good despite somewhat weaker macroeconomical data. The capacity utilization rates are the best macro indicators that describe these conditions for industrial business area. And from the data, we can see some weakening year on year. but still our order intake in industrial service and industrial equipment grew in quarter three. That was really driven by good activity in our standard equipment business, as well as some significant modernization and process grain projects. At the same time, within our industrial customers, we have seen somewhat cautious behavior. both in timing of new orders as well as delay in project delivery acceptance. Our operating environment continues to be impacted by geopolitical tensions and volatility, especially related to tariffs. Now let's then talk about the market environment for Ford solutions. And import solutions markets, we continue to see good activity. The container throughput index, which is the main indicator here, continued at a strong level in the third quarter compared to the historical readings. It is now up by 3% year on year. And as we say in our demand outlook, the long-term prospects related to container handling or container traffic remain good overall. We will now next take a look at our sales and order intake development. In the third quarter, the group order intake grew by 23% year on year in comparable currencies, and that is an increase in all three BAs. Looking at geographical markets, we saw some improvement in our order intake in Americas and APEC region, as well as some weakening in EMEA. Our sales in the third quarter decreased both in reported terms and comparable currencies, which was mainly driven by the lower order book in port solutions. And in the third quarter, we saw a decrease in net sales for industrial service and port solutions, but very strong delivery performance in industrial equipment after a less strong quarter two. On a group level, we saw a decrease in net sales in all regions. Moving on to the order book. And our order book reached its highest level since quarter one of 2024 and about it to over three billion euros at the end of the quarter. We saw an increase in industrial equipment and port solutions, while there was a decrease in industrial service. Our book-to-bill has been positive throughout the year. And looking back to our long-term performance, our order book continues to be on a historically good level. And then finally, looking at the EBITDA margin development, which reached also a record high level. In the third quarter, we generated 165 million euros of EBITDA. This translates to very strong EBITDA margin of 16.7%. And this performance came from really solid execution as well as some one-off items. And EBITDA margin increased year on year in all BAs. Industrial equipment reached its all-time high margin of 14.1% in the third quarter. And industrial service and port solutions also had very good margins of 22.7 and 11.8% respectively. Then let's move on to performance towards our financial targets. Last year was very good for us and our performance has continued strong also this year. This graph shows the rolling 12-month figures for our sales and EBITDA margin and progress towards our long-term financial targets. Our group sales remained flat and whilst our comparable EBITDA margin increased, when comparing the last 12 months to full year 2024. The group profitability in the rolling 12 months, we are at the lower end of our profitability target range of 13 to 16%. Of course, we consistently continue to work towards those targets. While increasing our EBITDA margin, we also aim to continue to grow our sales faster than the market. In industrial service, our steady progress over the last five years continues, and the sales in the rolling 12 months remained relatively stable, but our EBITDA margin increased to 21.5%. We are already today well in our Wendel 9 with our target range, but naturally still closer to the lower end of the bracket. And in industrial equipment, sales in the rolling 12 months remained flat, And also our EBT margin for the same period decreased compared to full year 2024. That is mainly due to the weaker H1 and particularly the weaker quarter two. While the quarter two performance for industrial equipment left room for improvement, our performance in quarter three was in turn exceptionally strong. Also here we will continue to work to strengthen the over the cycle performance of the industrial equipment business. Then moving on to the port solutions, we have continuously improved our financial performance during the last three years, as you can see from the graph, and we will also continue to do so in quarter three. Our sales increased in the rolling 12 months compared to 2024, which is already a very good year. And our EBITDA margin for quarter three remained at a high level, which resulted in an EBITDA margin of 10.8% for the rolling 12 months. Needless to say that I'm very pleased with this progress. Now I will hand it over to Teoto, our CFO, for some time, and then I'll return back in a moment.

Thank you. Thank you, Marko. And let's move on in the presentation. Actually, before going into the business area numbers, so let's take a look at the comparable EBITDA bridge between Q3 of this year and Q3 of last year. As we have seen, the margin improvement is large in a year-on-year comparison. And when we take a look at the Euros, so this turns into 22 million Euro improvement. And if we unpack this next a little bit. So first, starting with pricing. So our prices were somewhere between two to three percent higher than a year ago, maybe closer to three than two. But nevertheless, this improvement or increase in prices is somewhat less than what we have been having in the beginning of 25. When we combine this price increase to the fact that our sales declined more than 5% in a year-on-year comparison, so actually we are looking at quite a significant underlying volume decline in the third quarter in comparison to the situation a year ago. This of course creates a negative operating leverage impacting the profits as well. But there are then several positive things supporting our profits. First of all, net of inflation pricing. That was slightly positive. in an year-on-year comparison, even though the positive impact comes primarily as a result of tariff-related price increases. So we have increased prices in line with the tariffs, but then as a result of the inventory turns being slow, so actually the benefit comes first and then the cost will be flowing in a little bit later in terms of material consumption. In addition to that one, we had a clearly better mix now than a year ago. But the biggest explanation of all is very good execution that we had. So the performance of the business was excellent, particularly in the project execution, which is visible primarily in the ports, but also in the other business areas. When we combine into this one that our fixed costs actually were lower than what they were a year ago, we were able to create this improvement in the EBIT-A despite lower sales. When we take a look at the performance a little bit more in detail, so we can note that our performance this time was helped by some one-off type of levers things. One of them was that we actually received a R&D grant in Finland in the amount of roughly 4 million that was booked in the third quarter. This is of course visible in the fixed cost and that is one of the reasons why fixed costs are now lower than what they were a year ago. I already mentioned the tariff-related price increases and the tailwind that we got there. So that was less than 5 million, but several millions anyway. And then we had also some provision releases within the industrial businesses. And altogether these are, let's say, roughly 10 million euros or so. Then the next one I'm going to discuss is not like a one-off topic, it's normal business practice, but as a result of the good project execution within Port Solutions in particular, we were able to release provisions and that impacted positively our result in the third quarter. So normal business as such, but this quarter was better than average, definitely from that point of view. So there are some of the topics explaining the profitability and the profits within the third quarter. Let's then move into the businesses and start with service as usual. Maybe here worth noting that exactly as in the second quarter, so also here, the FX impact is quite big. So let's more focus on the numbers with the comparable currencies. In service order intake grew by almost 9%, 8.7%. This is clearly higher growth than we have had in the first half of 25. This growth was actually supported by some large modernization orders that were already mentioned by Marko as well. But even if we excluded those ones or the delta as a result of the modernizations, we still would be having growth, even if the majority of the growth is created by these modernization orders. When we take a look at the field service, so actually our order intake declined in an year-on-year comparison and in parts it was an increase. Then taking a look at the regions, we had increase in the Americas and EMEA, but a decrease in APAC. And it's worth noting that the modernization deals took place primarily in the Americas. Agreement base continued to grow more than 5% with comparable currencies and order book was slightly lower than what we had a year ago. Net sales grew only by 1.2%. And this is, of course, less than the price increases have been. So the underlying volume actually was lower than what we had a year ago. There, the reason is basically the slowness of order intake in the field service. And we had a decline in sales in field service within the service. Spare parts were basically stable in a year-on-year comparison. And then from the region point of view, stable in IMEA, whereas decrease in the Americas and Asia Pacific. Comparable EBITDA margin improved by more than 1 percentage point to 22.7%. Despite the somewhat sluggish sales development, this was primarily driven by very good cost management within the service business, but to some extent also by pricing, which was partially in relation to these tariff-related price increases and the timing tailwind there. So then industrial equipment, very good order intake, close to 350 million euros. That is as much as 26% growth in external orders when comparable currencies. When we take a look at this by the business units, so we had actually growth in process grains and components, but we had a decline in standard grains. And then of the regions, decrease in EMEA, whereas the other two regions saw growth. Then the sequential picture, which is important as well. So in comparison to the second quarter, actually we saw sequentially a significant increase in process grain orders. Components were more or less flat in a sequential comparison and standard grains declined slightly. Order book is higher, clearly higher than what we had at the same time one year ago. Sales grew very nicely, 6.3%, again with external sales in comparable currencies. After a little bit, let's say lower first half, we had increase in standard crane component sales, but a decrease in process grains, which then also at the same time meant that the product mix was somewhat better than a year ago. Then when taking a look at the margin, so excellent EBITDA margin, 14.1%, a very big improvement in an year-on-year comparison. Of course, driven partially by volume, so the underlying volume improved here in industrial equipment quite a bit. There were also some of the one-off items that we already discussed. For example, the R&D grant is mostly visible in the industrial equipment, but then also good execution otherwise, as well as the optimization program that we have been running has been giving benefits also for this quarter. And the mix also was slightly better than a year ago. Both solutions, good order intake or excellent order intake here as well. More than 450 million euros, that is 36% growth in an year-on-year comparison. We had very good order intake in yard grains. This would mean primarily RTGs and ASCs. If we take a look at the regions, Americas and APAC improvement, IMEA a decline. And here also again taking a look at the little bit of the sequential topic, but also the so-called short cycle product categories within port solutions. So lift trucks, there we had year-on-year growth in the order intake, but sequentially down. And then from the port service point of view, we had growth both year-on-year as well as sequentially. Sales was clearly down by almost 19%. This was, of course, known from the point of view that the order book was lower for the third quarter than a year ago. So order book overall is in good shape, 10% higher than a year ago. But the same thing continues now for the fourth quarter as we had for the third quarter as well. So we have less order book for the fourth quarter now than what we had one year ago for the fourth quarter. So the order book is more beyond this year or beyond the current year than what we had the situation one year ago. Comparable EBITDA margin developed very well, 11.8%, 2.2% improvement. This is obviously not driven by volume because the volume declined very much, but primarily because of the very good execution supported by some of the provision releases, like I said. And then also the product mix, particularly import solutions, was clearly better than a year ago. Then next a couple of comments on the the networking capital cash flow. We actually had networking capital of only 285 million euros at the end of the third quarter. That's only 6.7 percent of rolling 12-month sales. This is very well in line with our target of being below 10 percent. If we take a look at the delta to the situation a year ago, it is primarily inventories where the decline has come, and then in sequential comparison, it's maybe more accounts receivable. This networking capital development together, of course, with the good result meant very good free cash flow on record levels, this one as well, more than 200 million euros. which is then, of course, consequently leading to this slide, where we now actually during the third quarter have moved from being in net debt situation to being in net cash position. Not much, but negative gearing anyways at the end of the third quarter. On the right hand side, we can then see the return on capital employed, which is 21.7 percent. And this is a comparable number, but also the reported number is more than 20 percent. We have added actually a slide on the US tariffs as well, because that, of course, continues to be a relevant discussion topic. On the right hand side of the slide, we have the Connecranes exposure. So these are the numbers that we have already given earlier. So the internal volumes from Europe to the US is 180 million or less than 180 million. And then on top of this internal volume, we obviously then also have deliveries of fully assembled port cranes and lift trucks. We are of course subject to the normal reciprocal tariffs of 15% for example in the complete cranes. But then many of our components, particularly spare parts, are also subject to so-called steel derivatives, where we are then subject to a 50% tariff. And also the tariff codes added now to the steel categories in August was impacting us as well, so that we have now more components and parts within the 50% category than what the situation was before. What we have done is that we have increased prices more or less in line with the tariffs. We are of course monitoring the situation, we are monitoring what the competitors are doing, how the customer demand is developing. We are discussing with the suppliers to be able to define the steel content of the components, because of course that can help us to in a way get the tariffs, particularly the steel derivative tariffs, on the right level, if we can prove what is the share of actual steel in the components. So all in all, we have been able to manage the pricing well. This most likely will become somewhat more challenging going forward. so that maybe not all of the tariff increases are possible to put into the customer prices. We do not expect this to be having any major impact on the margins, but the situation may be in the future a little bit more tighter than what it has been so far. This actually was the last slide that I had, and now I invite Marko back to the stage.

Yeah, let's see how this works. So we had some issues with the first slides earlier, so now this should be now working again. So now let's look at our demand outlook. So our demand in the industrial customer segment has remained good and continues on a healthy level. However, the demand related uncertainty and volatility due to these geopolitical tensions and trade policy tensions remain particularly in North America. This translates into higher uncertainty, both in the timing of the order, as well as some postponement of maintenance activities within industrial customers or industrial service customers. And of course, it may impact also the delivery performance or deliver acceptance of customers. Our sales funnel remained on a strong level and funnel development during the quarter was stable. Comparing against the previous quarter, the numbers of new sales cases is slightly down. Then to our port customers, the global container throughput continues on a high level and long-term prospects related to global container handling remain good overall. And our pipeline of orders is good and contains projects of different sizes. And I'll reiterate our financial guidance for this year. Our net sales is expected to remain approximately on the same level in 2025 compared to 2024. And we continue to expect that our comparable EBITDA margin is to remain approximately on the same level or to improve in 2025 compared to last year. Now, before we start the Q&A, I'd like to go over three themes that we are leveraging to build on our strong foundation and to continue to drive the long-term profitable growth. Historically looking at in the long term, along run these have been and are the fundamentals behind our success. And they are the ones that are still very relevant today and will continue to provide us further runway also into the future. First of all, our Konecranes customer base is diverse and global. Our dual-channel market approach gives us the most comprehensive access to customers globally and to different segments. Our broad product and service lifecycle offering continues to give us an advantage when catering to customers' wide needs and creates stability against customer segments' demand volatility and helps us to address specific customer segments within those markets. This approach to the market, our offering and our customer excellence culture is critical, but it's also personally something that I'm passionate about and I want to continue to foster. And then secondly, I would like to emphasize the lifecycle approach of Konecranes. Developing a service and lifecycle approach over decades has been and is very much in the Konecranes DNA. We are not only providing equipment to our customers, but also taking care of them during the lifetime. That long-term customer relationship and focus on servicing all makes and models feeds our sales funnel continuously with equipment and service products. This cornerstone in our operating model has served us well, but it continues to provide us further runway for growth and efficiency. The lifecycle approach is naturally our way of doing business, but it's also the only sustainable way to operate in today's world. And thirdly, it is the technology leadership. So ConnectGrain has been the innovator in this market and reinforcing our technological leadership continues to be crucial. So focusing on technology innovation and development allows us to differentiate our offering versus our competitors. It creates more value to our customers and helps us to leverage the lifecycle approach even more in the future. So in conclusion, we have a strong foundation and great teams in place to build on our success and drive for expansion and growth. And I thank you very much for your attention. Now we move on to the Q&A. So Linda.

Thank you, Marko, for the presentation and thank you Teo also. So now we are ready to start the Q&A session and we'll first start taking questions through the conference call lines. So operator, we are ready to start taking questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs.

Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I want to ask on two things. First, I guess, starting with the growth in industrial equipment, given you mentioned sort of like the capacity utilization figures in the beginning, which haven't sort of yet started any big recovery. Can you talk about sort of what to draw? Was there any particular verticals? Was there some pre-buy on the components? Or what has, or market share gains or something, what has kind of caused really the the strength there and how sustainable you see that going forward? That's first, and I'll ask the other one.

Maybe the key reason there or the main point is to say this, you refer to the segments of the verticals and of course that is, although the general capacity utilization may not be yet, you know, be more on the contraction, not reinvestment level, but there are several verticals that are quite strong at the moment and drive demand. I'll just name a few. The obvious one, I guess, on everybody's lips is the defence segment. So that has been, of course, a topic for quite a while already. And in the third quarter, we not only saw more opportunities in front of the study to also see quite a few actual orders in that segment. That is a clear example. There are other areas where the long-term investment trend for other reasons than just productivity or capacity utilization are strong and maybe aviation is another example of where there's quite a lot of investment activity and there are a few others. And that of course is one of the key reasons why we continue to have solid order intake there and then of course finally then would also say similarly in the port segment when we talk about larger investments or bigger projects particularly in the process grain side they tend to take quite a while to decide and for the customers to make the investment decision and then you know make place the order and therefore it is not always exactly easy for us to predict and secondly not always exactly in line with the macroeconomical indicators.

Thank you. And the second one, just on port solutions, I think in many calls before you've talked about sort of the opportunity or on the whole SDS situation in the U.S. with replacement of Chinese cranes and tariffs there. But the U.S. is just proposing an even bigger scope of what they could be putting in terms of tariffs on China. I know about a year ago you said that you were building a supply chain domestically there for the SDS. Can you talk a little bit about, let's assume this 100% on SDS and the 150% in the remaining port equipment, would go through. Where do you stand now in terms of building the capabilities to supply and to get a share of these opportunities domestically and are there any side effects elsewhere in the world where you are seeing any increase in competition from the Chinese? Just give us a picture of how this has changed given the scope seems to be changing of what will be included there.

Maybe I'll start and then you compliment in case I forgot some part of the question. First of all, the recent development in those tariffs that was announced in early October, that of course not yet in our understanding completely clear on what is the scope or application and secondly what is actually how much tariffs are being applied so there is that certain uncertainty and of course what will be the final solution and that of course is for us and also the market something that needs to be and must be clarified in the end but that doesn't take away the the essence of your question, which was that have we been preparing? And the answer is that yes, we continue to prepare for the possibility to manufacture in the States. And we have been looking mainly based on subcontractors and utilization of our own existing facilities. industrial team that we have in the States, which is more than 2,000 people today and in several manufacturing sites. So we have an opportunity to explore that too. But that is the local US-made scope. There is that, let's say, gradual parcel or move to that eventual outcome, which means that there are products that would be manufactured in Europe or other parts of Asia, and there we have even more activities going on and readiness for supplier as it is already today. I recall that your last part of your questions, that do we see increasing activity elsewhere, then to some extent might be the right answer, and that is maybe more towards the other parts of Asia as well. the southern hemispheres.

Maybe to add on this competition elsewhere topic, that of course, if we talk about the SDSC, so we will need to remember that the market share for the Chinese competitor is also globally very high. So that this, of course, in a way, it may increase the competition elsewhere, but the market share already is there for the competition also outside of the US. And then if one takes a look at the RTGs, so there the situation is that, let's say, our relative market share in the U.S. is significantly bigger than what it is for SDSC. So there, on the other hand... And would be the same elsewhere also. And would be the same elsewhere. So that these two products are, from this geographical split point of view, a little bit different.

Got it. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Ponu Leighton Maki from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I have two. Firstly, on the margin outlook, so obviously Q3 was strong and had some one of positives that you mentioned, and it was above your long-term target, but How should we think about Q4 and going forward, given that you kept the guidance where the low end of having margins at the same level as last year would imply quite, let's say, lower margin for Q4, if I would read it differently? So could you explain how should we expect margins to develop going forward? Maybe you start with this, Teo.

Okay, I can. So yeah, the short answer to the question that do we expect the fourth quarter margin to be equal to the third quarter margin, so no. So we are expecting fourth quarter to be lower than the third quarter. Third quarter was was high. And of course, there are these topics that we were discussing. There is about 10 million or so, let's say, clear one-offs. One can say the product mix was very good. So this is maybe not a one-off, but doesn't necessarily repeat itself as such. And then the productivity or efficiency or execution, whichever word we want to use, was particularly good in the third quarter. So maybe from that point of view, Q3 was a little bit of exceptional. Other than that, of course, unfortunately, other than what we have in the guidance and what now concluded between, let's say, our expectation on Q3 versus Q4, we do not communicate more on that, unfortunately.

Okay, thank you. Maybe the other one is on the order intake outlook. So, I mean, it's a bit mixed if I listen to you. You say that there is less new cases coming to the pipeline and you increased answer that in the market. But on the other hand, we saw pretty good orders in industrial equipment and you mentioned these strong verticals. So, I mean, what should we expect going forward? So, is it... kind of driven by these strong verticals better than the macro implies, or are you seeing some pressure from macro going forward?

Yeah, of course, when we look at these new sales case trends and so forth, that tends to fluctuate a bit month after month, so that's maybe something not to put too much attention, but generally speaking, and you could remember that we operate in so many customer segments that quite well kind of evens out these fluctuations in in the different segments and now we are helped with certain strong segments that are making up for that let's say general somewhat more gloomy picture but what can just be simply said that our sales funnels in the industrial side and I understand you were more referring to that are stable and they are on a good level.

And maybe to build on that one, I mean, like you pointed out, so the sales funnels are basically stable and the number of new cases is slightly down. I mean, there's nothing major there, but actually the average size of the case is slightly up. And that's why the funnel as a whole looks fairly stable, despite all macro discussion and topics that there are.

Okay, thank you. The next question comes from Antti Kansanen from SEB. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. It's Antti from SEB.

A couple of questions for me as well, and I'll start with something that, Theo, you said on the EBIT-A bridge that you flagged that you had maybe a temporary benefit from tariff-related price hikes. So I didn't fully understand what you mean by why would you benefit first and what were you referring then on the costs impact that might come later. So a bit more clarity on that one, please.

Yes, the reason is that when we are increasing the prices at the time when we start to import the goods to, for example, in this case to the US. So first of all, we have old inventory in the US, which is with the old prices. That's one thing. And then the other thing is that when you are using average price in the inventory, So it tends to be so that the material consumption comes through at a different time than when the sales number actually comes. And this may create a mismatch, which we are here also seeing. So that's good when it works like this. But then the reality is that as we have not tried to gain anything on the tariffs as such. So of course, the disadvantage will be coming a little bit later. It can take a while, depending on the component that we are talking about. In service, it will come quicker. In equipment, it will come a little bit later, but it will balance itself over time.

okay but it doesn't sound like this would be a kind of a major driver for any margin fluctuation that we're seeing for example on the industrial equipment side which was obviously a big step up from from the second quarter and maybe Maybe there will be a bit of a step down, but this is not a massive driver on the margin.

The overall number, like I said, is less than five million and it is split basically between industrial equipment and service. So from that point of view also, it's not a massive driver. Plus it will not probably vanish in one quarter. So it will take a little bit. It's like a rolling, in a way, impact because of the average price that we in practice have from the inventory management point of view.

Okay and maybe a second kind of clarification that 10 million or so that you're kind of flagging as say EBITDA one of this quarter that's mainly on industrial equipment impacting mainly the industrial equipment division am I correct?

That is correct. So actually the tariff-related price tailwind that we just discussed is more in industrial equipment than in service, exactly because of this thing that the impact comes through quicker in service and slower in industrial equipment. And the R&D grant, which is the other big topic, is primarily within industrial equipment.

Okay. And then the second question, maybe this is a similar topic, but project execution and on the port side, if I remember correctly, I mean, the previous border margins on the ports were very good as well compared to the history. I didn't remember that you flagged mix back then, but that was also kind of a good execution and now continuous on the port side. Is there something that we should maybe see as a as kind of a structural improvement, something that we can extrapolate going forward, or are we still kind of wait and see whether this is sustained?

Well, I'll start again. First of all, in the board's execution, one thing that happens, these are big projects, and when you deliver a big project, of course, you make certain provisions for that project risks. And this execution, in this particular quarter, some of those provisions were released, and hence that's also relative to the sales. So the volume impact wasn't as big. It has some mixed impact. but the underlying reason is the same, that our project execution has been on RATO conditions. There isn't or hasn't been recently any significant, difficult projects That, of course, in the nature of the business, cannot guarantee that that would not happen at all. But I think our project management capabilities already over the last few years have been improving kind of consistently. And in that way, we are kind of confident that we can do that quite well now. But it doesn't remove the fact that in that sort of business that there is some risk involved also.

Yeah, the main point from our point of view is, of course, to be able to have this improvement trend so that, of course, every now and then a quarter is better and then maybe also worse. but when the trend is in the right direction from the project execution point of view, so then things are good from our point of view. From the mix point of view, there probably isn't anything structural that would need to be taken into consideration. We have of course consistently been saying that we want to grow more in port services than in other areas there, but as long as we have good order intake from the equipment point of view, so this will not be visible in one quarter or even maybe even in one year, so that this is a much longer sort of project to change that structure.

OK, then last one from me on the order side, I mean, I guess there was a couple of bigger ones that you flagged both on industrial services, on the process branch sides, obviously on the ports as well. Was this a bit of an active quarter in terms of big projects and is there something explaining the timing or am I just reading too much into it? You also mentioned that the average case size is growing. So was this a particularly active big project quarter for some particular reason or just a coincidence?

Coincidence is maybe not the word that I would use. Of course, it's part of our consistent and continuous work and working on the funnel at the timing of the orders, because the customer related reasons sometimes, of course, happens. It's not entirely under our control for sure. Maybe I'll answer that mainly related to the process grain business. And you see that the process grain business orders particularly was good. And in that case, I'd say that we had in the same quarter several quite successful larger projects, whether it is in power or aviation or to some extent also elsewhere. So that is maybe slightly larger than usual quarter, but that doesn't take away that both in the ports and in the industrial process grain side, there are still further opportunities in the funnel also. It is just timing wise.

I would say that it would be a little bit difficult to find the connection between this decision-making timing and something that has happened in the world from the macro point of view, or even from the micro point of view to us. So that coincidence is not the right word, but there is probably not a big scheme behind that would explain this timing.

Or if you find one, please let us know. I'll do that. I'll do that. Thank you.

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The next question comes from Tom Skogman from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead. Yes, hello, this is Tom from D&B Carnegie.

Sorry for asking about the margin guidance, but I mean, the January to September margin is already one percentage point higher than it was one year ago. Is there any reason you did not change the guidance to improve that we should be aware of as a risk element for Q4?

Maybe Tom, since Teo asked the previous related question also, you can start on this too.

We are not expecting anything dramatic in the fourth quarter that would be somehow deviating from the normal course of business significantly. I guess that it is rather that we would be saying that the third quarter was a little bit on the higher side because of the topics that we have been discussing. So fourth quarter, this year's fourth quarter like many other years, fourth quarters as well. So it is a combination of primarily of mix and then of course the underlying volume. And this balance is then of course very important from the margin development point of view as well.

Okay. If then looking at kind of building blocks for 2026, I would just like to get a bit of clarification when I do my own EBIT bridge. So to my understanding, there is no cost-cutting kind of program ongoing for next year. So what would you like to guide when it comes to fixed costs? and and this modularization of products is that kind of a rather a negative or a positive next year as you have indicated you have both the new and the all generational products in manufacturing next year

I didn't quite get the last part, so I'll let you answer that. But the first part when it comes to the fixed things, we first, we don't quite the fixed cost per se, but there is some tail end of this industrial restructuring program also remaining. And of course, when it comes to fixed cost, we are closely observing the demand environment. And we have also during this year made adjustments to the organization as needed based on the demand environment.

I guess the other question, if I understood Tom correct, was that is the product renewal slash launch in industrial equipment going to be a positive or a negative for 26 in comparison to 25?

Well, sorry Tom, I didn't quite get that. So yes, first of all, Those launches are now progressing basically to the second launch year. And during this year, The launch has been towards the second half proceeding all the time better. So the amount of products that we are converting is catching up, is probably a good way to say it. So that is proceeding quite satisfactorily, I would say. And now we have in all three regions the new wire rope hoists available also. So in that sense, the readiness is there. It is, as I think I explained also last time, when you have a new product you will run in manufacturing for some time, you will run two products in parallel, and that of course has the tendency to increase manufacturing cost. And secondly, you have some product cost, variable cost related timing to catch up with the old legacy product that has been in the market for quite a while. In both accounts, we have still next year, some costs on the new product that are higher than the existing product. But we are moving ahead quite well on that and we have been kind of preparing for that for the most part. So I wouldn't take that as a very significant consideration.

Okay, and then the big tariffs on RTG cranes. I don't understand why we discussed so much the STS cranes. I mean, isn't the RTG crane the big opportunity for you in the U.S.? I mean, that is much more high-margin products than STS cranes, and the Chinese companies have been very strong there as well. And in that product, you have already set up to deliver quickly, basically.

Yeah, that is true. At the same time, it is, although we don't exactly comment on the competitors markets here in the region, but the Chinese competition in this case is not as big on the RTGs as it is on the SDSs. That's maybe the main reason to your, or the main answer to your questions.

But we expect kind of a clearly increased market share in RTG train orders, you know, 26 and 27, if the current tariffs are holding up, basically.

No, I think, like I said, the Chinese competition where this is facing, of course, is not big on RTGs in the same way as they are on SDSs. That's probably as much as we can say on that market share topics.

don't want to disclose at all what the i've understood that the chinese have you know you know not 50 of the market but you know 30 40 of the market in the u.s isn't that right not not in the rtgs right not on the rtgs then okay then finally uh on electrification it's like a big theme you know do you have you know what all companies that operate with in electrification show pretty good growth at the moment but what most of these ones are big end customers to you in that you see that they are expanding and ordering cranes from you

Did you say, I think the line is a little bit bad, so did you say what are the big customers?

Electrification.

Yes.

Just generally, electrification is a very strong sector, you know, when you look at engineering. And you have a lot of sales, too. I mean, it could be Hitachi, it could be ABB or Siemens or whatever. But in what type of products do you see strong demand?

Okay, so you're asking our demand from that segment that benefits from the electrification. Sorry, I misunderstood. I understood our electrification of the products, so now I heard that, of course. Yeah, I mean, of course, that is one demand driver, that when the whole world is moving towards electrification automation and in that way more sustainable, then that drives demand in different ways, more directly and indirectly. And this indirect demand that is coming from the from the investments to the more sustainable machines and so forth, is driving also demand in these customer segments. They are however, generally speaking, not as large or not as big crane users as many others, but it is true that you can see that positive demand also in those segments, and in some cases also quite large pieces of equipment. So I guess the answer to your question is that yes, that is certainly one demand driver also.

And what about gas turbines? They are investing massively at the moment, for instance, the gas turbine manufacturers.

Gas turbines is one way of course, I mean besides wind and nuclear and hydro and a number of other things are one way of generating the electricity. We have seen it historically also that demand moving from one technology to others and now it is more maybe on that gas and of course the wind and nuclear and so forth. So that is true, but on the other hand it is then being, there is a reduction on the other side at the same time, so in the other technologies. And those are typically the users for those sort of equipment for gas turbines, they are rather large pieces of equipment or bigger projects because of the technology involved. Okay, thank you.

The next question comes from Mikael Dopel from Nordea.

Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Just a follow-up on the order intake here. So I guess what you're saying is that you had a few big orders in the quarter across the key segments, basically across all segments, actually. But you're also saying that you have a fairly good pipeline of projects, both imports and industrial. I'm trying to get my head around Looking at the numbers in Q3, 1.1 billion, how would you describe that? Is that normal in your view, or is it exceptionally strong? Or how should we think about the level of orders in this quarter when we think ahead from here?

I mean, you're referring to quarter three now or the following quarter?

Yes, exactly.

I mean, that was the same topic that we discussed a moment ago. So I maybe reiterate, first of all, the really strong funnel is maybe not what we said earlier. So we have a stable funnel and there are opportunities, large opportunities also in the funnel, as there has been on the first half of this year. So that hasn't per se changed. and it's the timing question when those actually realize that is not something extraordinary, they have always existed there and they just more are kind of a timing related topic that when they actually mature and so forth and now particularly for the industrial side of things so it is It was a good quarter also from a bigger project point of view, and hence the large order intake, but as it was stated by Teo also earlier, we had a rather stable order intake in the other, very stable order intake in the other areas, broadly speaking too, and growth in the agreement base and growth in basic service too. Which is in that way, in many ways, a very important thing also, the most important thing.

Okay. And on that topic, actually, I missed what Teo said in the beginning on industrial equipment, when you talked about the sequential order intake increase. If you could just repeat that, please, in industrial equipment.

Yeah. Sequentially, we actually had a very big increase in process grains. So in the heavier side. we were more or less flat on the components. And then the standard grains were slightly down. So standard grains were actually down both sequentially and year on year, whereas then process grains this time have done well in the third quarter. So it was up both year on year as well as Q and Q. With not a very good year last year. With maybe against easier comparables, that is correct. And components, which is maybe the most important one, taking a look at it from the demand point of view, has been, let's say, up year on year and flattish sequence. So, I mean, very hard to conclude anything significant from that one either.

Right, right. Okay. Well, that's clear. Thank you very much.

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

Thank you very much for all your questions. We have covered a lot of different topics, but I would still have one question left here in the chat. So can you please talk about the Sheep to Shore Cranes opportunity? Where can you produce outside of China? And do you need any additional capex to start new production or is it possible to use the existing plants?

Well, for SDS grains, we have and we have had also the possibility to produce those products also in this time zone in several places. And there are two locations in APAC and Southeast Asia where we have also working on a subcontracting based model to produce SDS grains. So that is nothing new as such. So that is a typical thing for us that we have to make sure that we have several kind of channels in place all the time. Now, because of this situation, we have been, of course, accelerating those activities or those projects to find the subcontractors.

Thank you, Marko. I think this concludes our session today. So I want to thank you all for following our webcast and I want to thank Marko and Teo and wish you all a lovely evening. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.