Thank you, operator. A very warm summary welcome to all of you to this second quarter earnings call for the Atlas Copco Group.

Very happy to have you all on board. Before I hand over to Vagner to start giving more comments on the results, I will already now, as usual, implore you to not ask more than one question at a time when the Q&A session starts, so all of the callers have the possibility to raise their question.

If there is more time available at the end, we can of course take more follow-up questions. Also that we have a tight deadline, we will finish the call sharply at the end of the hour.

That being said, I will hand over to Vagner. Vagner, I guess we can say that we are overall quite happy with this second quarter report.

Yes, indeed, Peter, welcome to this conference call. We are quite happy to report our record order intake coming from several market segments, I would say.

Of course, the highlight is the semiconductor, definitely a very nice growth. Not only, I think we saw our industrial compressor business developing well, our industrial vacuum, scientific vacuum, our industrial assembly tools, and also power equipment did very well.

I should also mention that our Gas and Process compressors also have a quite good growth in the quarter, with a lot of decisions being taken in the quarter where they were very well-positioned to get the orders. Also good to see our service business continue to grow in all divisions and in all regions.

I think we are quite happy with that development as well. That is part of our strategy to capture the aftermarket potential.

Our revenue, as a consequence, also grew organically, that we see a good development there. Our profit margin was stable year-on-year, we saw a sequential improvement that we are also quite happy to see.

If we look a little bit deeper in our adjusted profit, I think we see a good year-on-year improvement and sequential improvement as well. While we ramp the production that has requirements for stock and a bit of receivable, we still deliver solid cash flow.

We continue to roll up our acquisition strategy. This time, five companies were acquired in the quarter.

One to highlight is LACO Technologies, that will enable us to supply equipment for leak detection that are important in several market segments, including space business. Translated this level of activity, good orders.

If we look to the consolidated picture for the group, we had a good improvement in our orders received year-over-year. Basically, we have added more than SEK 10 billion in our order book.

That was really good development. Organic growth of 26%.

Our revenues grew 8% organically. Good part of the growth came from Vacuum Technique, but the orders, all the Business Areas had a positive development when it comes to revenue.

Like I mentioned, the adjusted profit increased in absolute terms 12%, with a margin of 21%. Good profit development, and also earnings per share, good development, cash flow, and the return on capital employed at 24%, that was a decrease year-over-year, but we also see a sequential improvement when it comes to capital employed.

When you look to the orders received, we see that we basically have grown in all regions. Very strong development, in most of the regions.

The only negative development we have is in the Middle East, Africa, Middle East, but the driver is the Middle East. Not too many decisions being taken there during the situation.

Even in the Middle East, we have a solid platform. We are now supporting our customers to restore production, and there are a lot of projects in the pipeline.

The environment does not allow our customers to take decision. Even in the Middle East, we are very well-positioned with good project pipeline.

Talking about Asia, very nice development, 47%, basically coming from all Business Areas. CT had a very nice development.

Vacuum Technique, very strong development. A little bit lower, but still positive in Industrial Technique, and Power Technique, also positive development.

Basically, all Business Areas have grown in Asia, in Q2, so quite happy. China as well, we had positive development in most of our product lines.

The highlight was mainly in the semi business, but not only. Compressors, Power Technique, and also Industrial Technique in some specific markets doing very well in China.

We go all the way to the Americas. You see North America, 49% growth, and also there, very strong in all Business Areas, and also very strong in Industrial Technique.

To start with, very good growth. We saw some projects in automotive, and mainly connected to production relocation, where we are very well positioned with the latest developments, where we create new capabilities of automation and also new capability when it comes to flexible production lines.

Our customers, they need more flexibility, we manage to benefit. Power Technique, solid growth inorganically and organically.

Very strong growth. VT as well.

We saw very nice growth in the semiconductor market, but again, not only in North America, but also some investment in metallurgy, and other segments doing well. Compressor Technique also did very well in North America, where the main driver was Gas and Process compressors connected to LNG.

Not only. Industrial gas is also doing quite well.

South America, 16%, also doing quite well, basically in all product lines that we have. Europe, I would say I'm very proud about the development in Europe.

It's 7%, not comparable with Asia and North America. On the other hand, considering the situation, I think we are quite happy with that achievement.

Also, most of our Business Areas has grown organically in Europe, which we are quite happy about. If we add up this result, it's translated then in a good organic growth when it comes to orders received, 8% in revenues organically.

Also, our acquisitions are doing quite well. You see 5%.

We have done one acquisition in the semi market that is doing quite well. Quite happy with the development.

You see the orders plus five, revenues plus four. They also are building a nice order book that they can work in the coming quarters as well with the invoice.

We still see currency headwinds in the quarter. That bring us to our year-to-date orders received of SEK 96 billion, orders invoice of SEK 85 billion.

Going to the split of our organic growth, we see now all the BAs doing quite well. It's good to see as well a bigger contribution coming from Vacuum Technique.

Now 25% of the orders received in the last 12 months, with 59% organic growth, 19% in Compressor Technique, also quite happy to see 14% in Power Technique, also 11% in Industrial Technique, considering their exposure to automotive, is also very good. Going more in details in the Business Areas, starting with Compressor Technique.

Quite happy to report organic growth into industrial compressors, and we see good development in most of our regions when it comes to industrial compressors. Sharp growth in Gas and Process, and there, the main drivers were LNG vessels and on-site LNG.

Those are the main market, but not only. We also got quite the major orders for industrial gases.

We continue as well to create opportunities for the future. Just yesterday evening, we have announced another acquisition, Euroklimat, that will continue to help us to deliver on our strategy, when it comes to optimized utility room.

We see that there are quite a lot of potential. We are very strong in the utility room, compressor room, or utility room.

They need cooling, they need heat and heat pump. I think that will create opportunities to upgrade utility rooms in the future.

That is the main reason for the acquisition, and give us R&D and production capabilities. It's important also to mention that we had quite a lot of decisions taken in Gas and Process.

Gas and Process orders received were above 15% of orders received from CT. It was good to be well-positioned with a very good quotation pipeline when customers feel more comfortable to decide.

I think we were quite well-positioned there. Revenues continue to grow organically 3%.

Profitability was lower than previous year, 24.1%, it's a good level. We believe the most important, for CT, is to keep their focus on organic growth.

We have the inorganic strategy, organic growth is extremely important to continue. They had some effects coming from the acquired entities when it comes to profitability, that's a good level, and we will continue our focus on organic growth.

We continue our focus on innovation. Here is another example of industrial gases, onsite generation of industrial gases, nitrogen or oxygen, and here is a new product.

This is also another segment that has helped us to continue to grow organically, and we continue the product development there. Good to see organic growth in Compressor Technique.

Going to Vacuum Technique was very strong demand, 59% organic growth. There we see when it comes to the semi market, basically orders came from all the major markets.

Orders came from advanced nodes, but also from mature nodes. China was also very strong.

Quite happy to see the development there. Not only, I think it's worth mentioning that our industrial and scientific vacuum are doing very well.

There we see in advanced batteries investment, battery storage systems. That required quite a lot of vacuums.

We saw good investment there. Not only, metallurgy is also an important segment in some regions where they need to invest in special alloys that they don't want to depend from one country or another, or even for defense.

We were very well-positioned to get orders. We also see more investments in R&D space where scientific vacuum benefits from that.

I mean, research in general, that we see an increase investment that our scientific vacuum is positioned to do very well in that market. Solid growth in service in both division, industrial, and also semiconductor service.

Happy with the way we start to scale up production now, 90% organic growth. We believe that is not enough for the order book we have.

We will continue to scale up production. The same when it comes to operating profit, 21%.

Peter will go more in details. We will see continued gradual improvement as we improve further the volume.

Also good to see now a bend in the trend when it comes to return on capital employed. We also have a nice pipeline of projects of innovation for the semiconductor.

That's another example on abatement systems, where we come with a new product that has better efficiency, extended mean time between services. That's pretty much aligned with what our customers in that market segment needs, requires.

Going to Industrial Technique. We're quite happy to report 11% organic growth.

I think good part of that is because of the investments we have done in the last two years in five acquisitions, that create the capability to do more automation within Industrial Technique for the automotive market. Not only, we also have invested in R&D to support our customers to have more flexible production line.

In this time that they need to do consolidation, move production from one place to another, mix different products. I think that technology is very well-perceived by our customers, I think we got quite good orders in that market segment.

Not only, also general industry did quite well. I think we have also developed some dedicated products for some market segments that are doing quite well.

I could mention electronics, I could mention defense. I could mention if you need in the data centers, you have to assemble a lot of components into racks.

I think that we managed to capture part of that business as well. Revenues also went up, a good profit development driven by the 11% organic growth and a stable return on capital employed.

As you can see, they keep on investing in innovation, and this product is specific for when you need to assemble a lot of electric components. I think they did quite well in the quarter.

Power Technique, also notable growth for equipment, 14% organic growth. Most of product lines developed very well.

Main driver here is for sure the U.S., where we saw quite a lot of order for portable compressors, and also for generators as well for rental companies. If there are investments in infrastructure, they definitely capture part of that investment.

Good to see specialty rental growth also in new market segments like we have invested in the pump rental business. We also see good development there.

Good growth, and also their service business. Revenues also going up.

When it comes to profit, also good to report a bend in the trend, because over the quarters the profit was declined because of acquisitions and some investments. Now it's the second quarter in a row that we see that improvement in the profitability, in the profit margin.

I think that's good. We are happy with that trajectory.

Return on capital employed lower because there we have done a major acquisition last year that is still growing into that cycle. They continue to invest as well in R&D.

Here is a clear example of a dedicated product for the American market, a product that is utilizing water well drilling. With that, perhaps I will move to you, Peter, please, that you can take over.

Thank you, Vagner. Moving from operating profit to the rest of the income statement.

We have net financial items that are slightly higher, but no meaningful change you could say fundamentally. Profit before tax SEK 9.1 billion versus SEK 8.4 billion, and income tax expense of SEK 2.1 billion, somewhat higher than the same quarter last year, with an effective tax rate of now 22.8%.

We think that this tax rate will probably remain at around the same level, maybe even be slightly lower in the coming quarter, 22.8%. Maybe if all stars align, we will end up at maybe 22.5%, going forward.

Let's say small change. This is more or less the level that we see in the near term continuing.

If I then move to the next slide, then talk a little bit about the profit bridge for the group. You could say nominally very flat margin, 20.6% in the second quarter 2026 as well.

First of all, there is the impact of the LTI programs, where basically part of that profitability is eaten up. The acquisitions are also somewhat dilutive for the overall margin development.

The currency, on the other hand, is slightly positive, and that has mainly to do with the fact that last year we had very negative operating exchange differences, which basically this year are not there at all, I would say. We have very minor positive operating exchange differences.

Basically, the fact that in the bridge the previous year negative development comes back as a positive now resulting in this net improvement of the margin thanks to currency. More importantly, I would say is the fact that we have a good drop-through for the margin, given the fact, of course, that we have quite a significant volume price improvement.

The revenues have gone up quite a bit. There are, of course, some elements that partly offset it, but still a higher margin than we had last year, resulting in basically a better adjusted margin this year as well.

When it comes to the foreign exchange differences or overall the currency impact on the income statement, if I look a little bit forward, for the moment, we still have quite negative values on the top line, and then a minor negative on the operating profit. When it comes to the next quarter, I would expect that the top-line impact of exchange rates will be very, very minor.

Also on the operating profit, normally, very minor impact, of course, depending on how the currencies develop, might be somewhat negative, somewhat positive. Let's say for now, knowing what we know, we would expect something basically like zero currency impact, in absolute terms, on the bottom line.

If I then dig into the bridges of the individual Business Areas, starting with Compressor Technique, like Vagner already mentioned. I think organically, or we end up with 24.1%, somewhat lower than last year at 25%.

Of course, 25% is a margin that we really enjoyed for quite a while now, being on an absolutely high level. Acquisitions, on the other hand, are eating up a little bit of that very high margin.

They are somewhat dilutive, and that, of course, is given by the fact that in the first year, we add a lot of costs for integration, for IT security, other type of things, and we are not able to fully mobilize all the synergies yet. It is not illogical, let's say, to have some negative traction from acquisitions in the beginning.

The currency for the moment is also slightly negative on the margin. Not that much, minor impact, but still bringing the margin a little bit lower.

Then when it comes to the drop-through, there, of course, we see a little bit lower margin, but again, 24.1%, still the highest margin in the group from all the Business Areas. Given the fact that we have organic growth, I think we're very pleased to see that development.

Realizing that volume at the margin of 24.1%, we are still quite pleased with. As we have always said, organic growth is absolutely the top priority, then the absolute volume value development of the profitability is then what follows out of that, which is, we think, more important than sticking to this absolute 25% profit margin.

Vacuum Technique. I would say, first of all, also somewhat dilutive effect from the acquisitions.

We have, of course, done quite a few there as well. Vagner already mentioned LACO.

We also have the joint venture in China, for example, developing well from a top-line point of view. The margins are still a little bit lower, but also over time, we expect that we are able to develop that further.

Also here, we have the initial integration cost, and of course, important to mention both for CT and VT, that the bottom line is at least positive in absolute terms compared to the revenues. Currency is quite positive for Vacuum Technique.

Vacuum Technique has had the biggest impact from these operating exchange differences, and of course, that comes from last year at least, so that comes back this year as a positive. The strong development of the Vacuum Technique revenues also results in a reasonable drop-through, I would say, adding a decent percentage to the overall margin for Vacuum Technique.

We need to consider, of course, that the demands on Vacuum Technique, and specifically on semi, are very extraordinary. Knowing that in certain locations, certain factories, we need to basically more than double the output of the company to get to the demand from the customer.

It's not just a slight increase. It is really quite transformative to more than double the output within a short period of time.

That means that we need to invest, first of all, in direct labor to make sure that we can make the products, but also in some other costs that we initially, during the restructuring phase, have basically cut down to make sure that we protect the profitability. Now we need to catch up, and that, of course, means we need to put some investments there, which are, to some extent, bringing down the very strong impact of the revenue volume development that we see in semi, particularly.

I will move to Industrial Technique, starting with a margin of 17.1%. Also quite a positive impact from the currency, as Industrial Technique had also been quite exposed to the currency development last year.

Especially then when it comes to the organic development of the business, very strong performance with a very solid drop-through. I would say, of course, on the one hand, we have the revenue volumes that are improving, but on the other hand, also really seeing the full impact of all the restructuring activities that the business area has gone through during the last year.

That, of course, results in very nice operational efficiency leverage in the margin there. Last, Power Technique.

Also here, as Vagner explained earlier, a nice improvement of the margin. We actually see that the acquisitions we have done in Power Technique are not only accretive from an absolute value point of view in terms of profitability, but are even accretive from a margin perspective, which is, I think, very positive to notice.

Currency impact for Power Technique is virtually nothing. They have also had less issues with currency in the last year, I would say.

Finally, organically, also here we see an improvement thanks to volume price development. On the other hand, we've had, due to all the investments we have made in the rental fleet in order to push that business forward, also to invest and replace some competitor products, especially on the dewatering side, with some own-made products in the fleet.

That results in somewhat higher depreciation costs, which has a little bit of a detracting impact and other operational inefficiencies in the rental business particularly, and also a little bit of an unfavorable mix, so that in the end, pulls down a little bit the drop-through, but still adding to the margin quite nicely. If I then move on to the next slide, I will give a few comments on the balance sheet.

I think the main impact I would like to highlight is, first of all, if we look year-over-year, the addition of all the acquisitions that added quite a bit of volume to the balance sheet. Secondly, the development of inventories and receivables, which goes hand in hand with the business development.

We have seen the revenue increase and the increased production. We need to push out the factories, add some inventories.

The additional invoicing obviously creates more receivables. Good to note that, relatively speaking, the working capital in comparison to revenues is actually improving gradually over time now.

The cash, of course, went down a little bit given the fact that we have made the first installment of the dividend during the second quarter. When I move to the equity liability side, the equity a little bit down compared to December, mostly because of, on the one hand, we have taken out the full dividend from the equity.

On the other hand, we've added, of course, the profitability over the last two quarters. While on the other hand, we see mainly the non-interest bearing liabilities moving upwards, partly because of payables increasing hand in hand with inventories, you could say, while also the second installment of the dividend has been moved from the equity to the non-interest bearing liabilities.

I think that is in a nutshell the main items on the balance sheet. I would say nothing spectacular there.

Cash flow, as we already indicated earlier, despite the fact that we have this steep ramp-up going on in semiconductor, but also all the other Business Areas doing well on orders and therefore also having to increase quite a bit on the production side. We see still a quite solid cash flow coming out of the second quarter, mainly based on a very strong operating cash surplus, adding at least SEK 1 billion to that one.

It is slightly offset by somewhat higher tax payments, mainly then the investments we need to make in working capital, higher receivables, higher inventories, somewhat offset or partly offset by the payables that also increase hand in hand with the inventories. That leads us then to overall cash flow of SEK 6.8 billion, which I think is, given the fact that we need to put a lot of money into the operations at this moment, generating quite good efficiency from a working capital perspective.

With that, I've come to the end of the explanations on the different financial statements, and I will hand back now to Vagner to comment a bit on our near-term outlook.

Thank you, Peter. Just to remind, our near-term outlook is a sequential guidance for the next quarter, also it refers to our customer activity, excluding large orders for end potential effects and seasonality as well.

Based on the information, we saw that the activity has increased from Q1-Q2, and we believe that the activity level will remain the same. It has been elevated, and now we believe it will stay at that level, supported by a strong continued strong semi, but also the general industrial market remains strong.

Will remain strong.

Okay. Thank you, Vagner.

With that, we have reached the end of our presentation, we would like to give you the rest of the time for question-and-answers. Of course, again, repeating that please stick to a very disciplined approach, not asking more than one question at a time.

We will finish the call sharply at the hour. With that, I hand over back to the operator to get all the questions.

Hi. Good morning.

Thank you for taking my question. My question relates to can you give us a little bit of color by division on how much backlog visibility do you have now that you had such strong orders versus perhaps what you had last quarter?

Basically, do you see that backlog supporting these levels of organic growth you're having now in the coming quarter, or for how long should this help you maintain this type of growth? Thank you.

Good. Thank you, Daniela.

We see that we have a strong order book now. When it comes to Vacuum Technique, all hands on deck to increase the output of our factories.

That is what management is busy with, and I think they are doing a good job. I think the ramp-up is going according to our plan.

I think, like Peter mentioned, in some of our factories, we have to more than double. There are some backlog, but I think with the increase in production in a quite short period of time, we will see good development.

In Compressor Technique with the good orders as well. In industrial compressors, we also need to do some ramp-up, and that is also going according to plan.

I think we are managing quite well, and I think the most important now for us is to keep competitive lead times in semi, because then we can also outperform our competition when it comes to that. That's the main focus now.

When it comes to Gas and Process, of course, their lead times are much, much longer. In terms of revenue growth, that will come, of course, at a later stage.

Clear. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, Vagner and Peter.

Klas at Citi. I had a question on growth and margin.

First on the growth in Gas and Process. We knew from the data coming out from the yards that orders in LNG could be strong, but is this still a very lumpy business, or is the order pipeline here strong enough to keep delivering orders at this level the next couple of quarters?

And then on the margin in VT, I get that there are costs to ramp here, but we've heard from others in semis that price increases are now likely versus what typically is a deflationary industry. Are you hiking pricing now on the pumps and the abatement systems, given the tight supply-demand?

Thank you.

Yeah. If I start with the Gas and Process, I think it's very hard to say that, "Oh, we will repeat in the next quarter," because it can be lumpy.

We don't know if customers will decide to place order. I think this business remain quite attractive.

Gas and Process, I always like to repeat, Gas and Process is not only about the LNG vessels. I think there we are very well-positioned.

If customers decide, we will be able to get that opportunity. We are very competitive to get these opportunities in LNG and LNG vessels when customer decide.

We also want to highlight industrial gases. The market is quite favorable for us.

We have also LNG onshore, gas processing plants. We also have invested in the, let's say, large-scale heat pumps, and we got orders as well in the quarter for that.

To do things like district heating, you need large heat pumps that we supply the product. It's several market segments.

This quarter, we had a concentration of decisions that allows to have this quite nice growth in Gas and Process. It's very difficult to say it's going to repeat in the next quarter.

If you look to the periods where we had very large orders received in Gas and Process, and you could look back to Q1 2023 and Q1 2025, I think we didn't see that repetition in the next quarter. The pipeline, what I can say is the pipeline.

We have a lot of projects in the pipeline, but it's very hard to say that it's going to be next quarter. On the semi-- pricing in general is positive in all the BAs, I would say, including in semi.

I think that's why we mention about all hands on deck when it comes to production output to increase, because that also gives a bit more power when it comes to price. I think we also have other things that give a bit of a good outlook for the future, because we also have new products that are quite good in terms of energy consumption.

We have shown that in the last Capital Markets Day, and that is an ideal moment as well to speed up the introduction of new products.

Also maybe the reason why we are not-

The drop-through-

Sorry, Klas. That we're not so unhappy, let's say, about the fact that the drop-through is maybe not at stellar levels, that we want to take those costs to make sure that we do the ramp-up quickly, so that ultimately it will give us, if we do everything right, more competitive lead times.

Which means that we should be hopefully favored by our customers when they want to place an order based on the fact that they can get the product faster. That hopefully can allow us to also have a good discussion on price development for those orders going forward.

Would you say that pricing on orders are higher than in the P&L at the moment? Should the drop-through improve from here as you start to deliver the backlog?

Well, overall, I think the statement is valid that we do expect for Vacuum Technique an improved margin development in the coming quarter still. This is not the end of the story, we prefer to take some of these ramp-up costs at this point in time, then we will see with increased volumes as we go forward, the margin continuing to improve gradually.

Maybe more slowly than one would have anticipated, but at least gradual continuous development of the margin.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Klas.

Hi. Good morning.

I just want to ask about how best we should think about your growth, maybe relative to WFE spending. I guess what I'm getting at is when I hear you say that some of your customers need to double production, that seems a lot faster than the maybe kind of 25%-30% WFE, growth that we're getting, and we've obviously come out of a period where you've undergrown WFE for a couple of years.

I guess I'm curious, as we sit here today, we look at your mix, we look at some of your large customers. I've always felt like Intel was a relatively bigger customer for you.

Do you think there is the opportunity to outgrow WFE? Maybe is that what you're indicating when you talk about some of your customers asking you to double?

I think just to clarify first on that, we have some product lines that we need to double the volume due to the demand. I think in our last Capital Markets Day, I think we have explained as well the dynamic that has changed in the WFE, where you have much more advanced packaging.

I think there is a quite good component of advanced packaging in WFE. In that occasion, we said we were in a very good position.

We didn't see that we were losing our competitive position. We are there, now with the demand coming from our customers, we managed to capture demand basically from all regions.

All regions that are investing, we managed to capture their investment. In the WFE, sometimes it's also difficult because there is a component, even if you exclude advanced packaging, sometimes they just build what I call the vessel, the premises, and the utilities, and they populate in a later stage with machines.

For us, we are very well connected. When the machines arrive on site, the machines are installed, then they require the vacuum system.

We have normally shorter lead times than the process tools. We come into later stage.

It's always difficult to make that comparison. I think what is important to remind, and we have said that we are in a strong position.

We have several projects to keep our competitive advantage, and I think the quarter shows that we continue to be very well positioned.

Would you say you're over-indexed to any type within WFE, whether by customer, memory, logic? As we sit here today, I know you historically never said you were, but has that changed at all versus history?

I think it's a broad-based growth now. Like I mentioned before, we see growth in all the players.

We see growth in all the regions, including in China.

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Morning, afternoon. Just to follow up on that Vacuum Technique point.

You've mentioned stronger growth in China a couple of times, I think it's fair to say over the past few years that your growth there lagged some of the broader semis tool manufacturers. Do you feel you're now seeing a catch-up as domestic fabs install some of the equipment they've already bought, therefore you're in a stage of sort of outperforming the overall semis market in China?

If so, does that mean that China could remain one of your stronger markets within semis for the next few quarters? Thank you.

Yeah. If they decide to install the tools and to ramp up production capacity, we are positioned to support them.

We have local production, competitive lead times. I don't want to say that we had a good quarter because of China.

That's not to say. It's a really broad base.

It's China. It's all the major players where semiconductor industry is important, including the U.S., let's say.

We also had good quarters there.

Thank you.

Hi there. Thanks for the question.

I'd like to talk a bit more about the pricing actions in the quarter, and maybe even the pricing strategy for CT. I just wanted to better understand your comments really on the organic growth priority and the margin evolution.

Should we infer that you are increasing price below inflation or peers to maximize the organic growth opportunity? On the margin side, obviously 24% margins are impressive, but would you anticipate a further decline or a potential return to that 25% level in the coming years?

Thanks.

Thanks, Phil, for your question. No, I don't think it's an intention to have low pricing improvement in order to capture volume.

I think it needs to go hand in hand. It's a combination of the both.

I think we see good development of the pricing also in Compressor Technique. When it comes to that 24% margin or 24.1% margin, I think we have always been quite vocal about the fact that, of course, if we can take 25%, we will not leave it on the table.

We've always said that it is more important to have organic growth than to have continued margin expansion, and even to take some quarters with a lower margin. Is 24.1% the bottom?

Okay. One can never tell exactly.

There's also a lot of other aspects to it, it's the currency, it's the mix that has an impact, etc. Of course, we are not aiming to do less than 24% if we can avoid it.

If we can do better, we will also not leave it on the table, as I said. Like we indicated, we are still very pleased with the 24.1% performance for the Compressor Technique business area, and we are using pricing.

We are not, let's say, releasing the pressure on increasing the price into the market. I think the most important currency that we use in order to drive pricing is still R&D, as we have always said, and that continues to be the case.

Pricing is as much a priority in order to generate better profitability over time and to protect, of course, other cost pressures that we see in the market as well, as pure volume growth in the market.

Thank you. That's helpful clarification.

Thanks.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question.

I'm just trying to understand a bit more about the order momentum for VT. Are you seeing customers to be in a rush to place orders or more like placing in terms of their order for the tools or other semi equipment according to expansion needs?

I'm just trying to get a sense of how we should see the order momentum into third quarter or the coming quarters. Thank you.

I would say that it's a good order book. Most of the orders we get, I think it's firm delivery dates.

We have an element of pre-ordering, but I would say that it's not huge. It's also difficult to qualify how much.

That's why it's better for me not to tell you a figure, but I think most of the orders we have, we have a clear delivery date. In the semi as well, it's very dynamic.

The priorities can change, and we are quite used to that.

Got it. That's helpful.

Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thanks for the opportunity. Strong set of numbers, so congrats.

I wanted to understand a little bit, and kind of square the circle here on your comments about the order intake. From a distance, it looks like the cadence is a bit off versus, quote-unquote, "a normal Atlas year."

I'm wondering if you can help us at a high level, think about how much of the Q2 intake was perhaps catch up or late decisions that one might expect in Q1 in a normal year, versus what you see as the start of just stronger demand in the relative divisions. Thanks.

I think it's difficult to say how much it was catch up, there was a very nice, let's say, quotation pipeline, and we saw a good alignment, a lot of decisions being taken in the quarter. On the industrial compressor, I see more underlying improvement, that we believe it will continue because And also we have seen growth in all areas of our industrial, let's say, general industry portfolio that goes into Industrial Technique, Compressor Technique, in Vacuum Technique.

We saw growth basically everywhere. In Gas and Process, I think there was a concentration of decisions in Q2.

I think that's fair to say. Not in the other areas.

The general industry saw an improvement and also on the semi market.

Vacuum Technique specifically, of course, performed very strongly, but also already in Q1, we saw quite a strong growth as well. Also there, I would definitely not say that there is a catch-up effect in Vacuum Technique at all, I would say.

Okay. Helpful.

Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you very much for taking my question. It's again on VT.

I wondered if you could just share with us broader level, what level of visibility do you have in this business in terms of your order book funnel, being able to predict where the orders are heading? Should we read anything into you kind of cautioning a bit, a quarter ago when we had the first jump, and not cautioning now, when we've had a further improvement?

If I may just bolt on another sort of angle to it. We saw an announcement of a facility being launched, in the U.S., I think in February, in VT specifically, and from what we could gather, it's of meaningful size.

I just wondered if this order intake that we're seeing now is related to that kind of filling up, and whether you could comment on where we are on this, if that's indeed the case. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, what I could say, we have little visibility of what can happen in the semi market, because those are key accounts and large accounts.

When they decide to place order, it's quite significant. What we see from the market, it's a lot of interactions with our customer.

We believe that the activity will remain at this high level because of the activities that we have, the interactions that we have with our customer. They don't say exactly, "Oh, I'm going to come with a lot of orders in Q3 now."

I think that does not happen. It's more based on the interactions in the contracts that we already have in place, and then they can take decisions or not.

It's very difficult to predict, but it's more based on the level of interactions that we have with our customers.

You mentioned the-

The VT.

The factory that is coming online. I think you referred to a project that we announced quite a few years ago in Genesee, in the Buffalo area.

It's true that what we indicated is that this factory is coming online, more or less as we speak, step by step, gradually. It's not the grand opening and firing from all barrels at the same time.

We are gradually stepping into producing a bit in that factory. Of course, we will continue to ramp up the production there as well as part of our, let's say, approach to making sure that we can deliver to our customers.

This is a gradual ramp-up or a startup, you could say, of the factory as we speak. Over time, in the coming quarters, we will be able to bring on stream the capacity of that facility step by step.

Great. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Yes. Good morning, afternoon.

Can I clarify one thing and then ask one thing? You mentioned order price is positive in Vacuum, but could I just check, do you mean just the gross price, or are we actually positive on a price inflation cost spread basis?

On that number, could you get some meaningful 100, 300, 400 bit type positive this upcycle, given your customers are enjoying massive 2%-400% price rises? My question, if I could, is what's the maximum speed you can grow your Semi OEM revenue in Vacuum in the second half of scientific service, just on that unit, given your current capacity and your ramp-up plans?

On the pricing, I don't think we will give more additional information on Semi specifically or Vacuum Technique in general, because I think we do measure, of course, like for like, and the same product sold to same market or even same customer in some cases, compared between years. There is, of course, more than that.

There is also new products being launched, and there is the impact of the value that we're able to transmit there. It is, of course, there are numbers, but in the end, it is not the full picture.

I think what for us is most important is that we continue to see positive price development across all Business Areas, including Vacuum Technique, including Industrial Technique. I mentioned those two specifically because you know as well as I do that those two Business Areas are more exposed to very concentrated OEM customers.

That, of course, has an impact on how much pricing improvement you can really push through, as opposed to a more diffused market where thousands and thousands of customers are exposed to that price increase that we try to put out. Of course there is, let's say, a tougher battle on the OEM side, but the fact that we are able to generate positive price effect, I think is very good because particularly in Semi, which used to be a market where the price was expected to go down year-over-year for like for like products.

I think that's at least a positive development there.

Thanks. The maximum speed for the semi OEM revenue business, you cannot comment on the kind of rough orders of magnitude?

No, because I think it is also very difficult to say. It might also be different for some of the products in some of the locations where we produce them, etc.

There are so many dependencies. I think definitely I am, let's say, open to say that ramping up at this type of pace is definitely challenging.

Again, we have then decided that the ramp-up is the absolute top priority right now within Semiconductor specifically, and Vacuum Technique more broadly. That is why we are, of course, also putting some extra costs there, which has somewhat dilutive effect, you could say, compared to the even stronger drop-through we would generate otherwise.

At least it will help us to secure our very strong market position we have and benefit from that as we go forward in the coming quarters.

Thanks, Peter.

You are welcome, James.

Thank you for squeezing my question in. I have a follow-up on the backlog situation, and the lead times in Gas and Process.

If I accumulate orders and sales since 2021, you should have built a total backlog of around SEK 36 billion, of which SEK 23 billion sits with Compressor Technique. I think a large part of that backlog buildup in CT should be related to strong Gas and Process orders in 2022 and 2023.

I wonder if you see that deliveries will step up in CT in the coming quarters because of the orders you received a couple of years ago related to Gas and Process. Thank you.

Yeah. What I could say, we continue on delivering those orders.

I think also is worth mentioning those orders, sometimes, we had occasions where we got orders for several ships to be delivered in quite some years. I think we don't see, I would not call a backlog because we are on time according as we build the ships.

We have been increasing our capacity in Korea and in China to cope with that demand. I think we don't have capacity constraints there.

I think it's going well. It's just a matter of when our customers, they need.

There we need to be precise. I don't know how much you know about that market, because if we don't deliver on time, they will close the ship, and there will be no way to give the machine.

It's a big hustle if we don't deliver. I think we are quite on time, a dedicated organization.

We don't see it as a backlog. It's a healthy order book.

From what we can see, it's a healthy order book that we have in Gas and Process.

Understood. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Andreas.

With that question, we also have basically come to the end of the question list. We would like to thank you all for listening in and joining us for this earnings call.

If you have any further questions, we are, of course, very happy to help you out through our IR department. Daniel and the team will be more than happy to help you with any question you might have.

Thank you very much, and have a great rest of the day. Thank you.

Bye-bye.