Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Schindler Q3 results 2026 conference call and live webcast. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator.
I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.
You can register for questions at any time by pressing * and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press * and 0.
The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Lars Brorson, Head of Investor Relations.
Please go ahead.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Valentina. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q3 2026 results conference call.
My name is Lars Brorson. I'm Head of Investor Relations at Schindler.
I'm here together with Paolo Compagna, our CEO, and Carla De Geyseleer, our CFO. As usual, Paolo will discuss the highlights of our Q3 results and our 2026 market outlook, and Carla will take us through the financials.
After the presentation, we're happy to take your questions. We plan to close the call at 11:00.
With that, I hand over to Paolo. Paolo, please go ahead.
Paolo Compagna
Good morning, everyone. I'm glad to be back to report on our Q3 results.
I have to say, I'm quite pleased with our performance this quarter. We saw organic growth returning to our top line, both order intake and revenue, and margins continuing to expand.
In short, our strategy is working and is starting to translate into accelerating profitable growth. Now, let me walk you through the highlights.
In Q3, we saw a very good growth in order intake at over 10% in local currencies, with a good contribution from most of our regions and businesses. New installations grew fastest at over 15%, modernization at 13%, and our service and repair business at mid to high single digit.
All our regions grew high single or low double digit. Broad-based strength across our organization, even in China, despite a modest decline in new installation orders.
Revenue growth also accelerated in the quarter to 5% in local currencies, and this is largely in line with our expectations and consistent with our full-year 2026 revenue guidance of a low to mid-single-digit growth. Overall, we saw a good execution of our backlog across our businesses, not least in modernization, where revenue growth in Q3 came in at 16.5%.
Further, our margin performance saw another 100 basis points improvement over last year's Q3. On an adjusted basis, margins were 50 basis points higher.
Where is this improvement coming from? Our teams are doing a good job in offsetting the additional cost inflation which we are facing with pricing and further mitigation actions.
Business mix was also a modest tailwind, but less than in prior quarters, as our service business saw also a good growth in this quarter. It is first and foremost delivery on efficiencies which continue to support the margin improvement, and this also drives our revised EBIT margin guidance for the year, which we now see coming in at 13.5% versus our earlier 13%.
Carla will be very happy to provide you some more details shortly. The improved competitiveness in our new installation and modernization businesses also has favorable implication on growth and market shares.
We spoke in July on our half-year results call about how our modular platforms were supporting our market share momentum in the new installation markets that were early in our global rollout, notably Europe. I can now say that this trend of gradual market share gains is continuing in other regions as well, including Americas and Asia-Pacific, well, outside of China.
A word on the changing competitive landscape. It's clear that the industry looks set to go into a phase of consolidation, and I believe Schindler enters this period from a position of strength, with sustained improvement in our operating performance, a very strong financial position, a business model resilience, and strategic clarity.
We are committed to pursuing our profitable growth with discipline and determination. I believe we have a strong foundation to capture the commercial opportunities that this changing landscape will bring.
Not at least, we continue strengthening our product offering, especially for modernization solutions. Here, you see our new PORT terminal, one of the components we released in Q3 to support our PORT technology-based modernization packages, allowing to upgrade with PORT destination control systems not only Schindler, but also third-party elevator systems.
Finally, a word on our organization. I'm proud that we have been recognized by Forbes again this year as being among the world's best employers.
We have close to 70,000 employees, and attracting and retaining talents is more important than ever to our competitiveness and to the overall health of our company. This recognition is important to us.
Now, moving to our market outlook for '26 on slide 4, which we have kept unchanged in spite of the continued macro uncertainty. Global geopolitical events directly and indirectly impact construction cost through material price volatility, energy costs, and lead times impacted by supply chain and logistics disruption.
The constant upward pressure on cost and elevated interest rates are the primary reason why the green shoots that we saw in a number of key construction markets are yet to translate into a more convincing and broad-based activity recovery across Europe and North America. Against this backdrop, modernization markets remain a bright spot, with solid demand across all regions and particularly vibrant activity in markets where elevator upgrades and replacements are incentivized by government programs and subsidies, well, most notably in countries like Spain and China.
In new installations, the markets continue to develop positively overall outside of China, but with meaningful country variances within each of the regions. In Europe, hopes are rising for a definitive end of the construction crisis in Germany, with multifamily building permits continuing to grow at double digits.
France remains weaker, though, and overall order books across Europe in construction markets remain subdued. Activity in Brazil remains solid, driven by social housing segment, and in the US, multifamily permits continue to rise, while in the nonresidential segment, the focus is obviously on the massive AI and data center build-out rather than on the more elevator-relevant office, hospitality, and retail projects.
There's no recovery in sight in China, with all indicators related to new construction remaining very weak, while Asia-Pacific, outside of China, continue to see healthy growth across India, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Turning now to slide 5 and our order intake in this third quarter.
Service, our maintenance units, continue to grow, led by Asia, with the Americas portfolio now stabilizing in line with our expectation as indicated in our prior calls. That's in units, while in value, we continue to see in Americas service growing at low-single-digit levels.
In modernization, Q3 marked the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, we are very pleased with our consistently strong performance. Our average growth rates over those seven quarters exceeded 16% and was well above the overall market growth, according to our estimates.
Growth was well into the double-digit territory across all regions, excluding Americas, due to fewer large projects booking in the quarter year-to-date. However, our mod orders in Americas were stable in spite of the unfavorable quarterly comparison, and this considering the very strong growth of 2025.
EMEA was a standout, with growth exceeding 20% in all the largest mod markets of the region. In China, orders growth further accelerated from the already high rate recorded earlier in the year.
In new installations, China saw only a modest decrease in order volumes, which, well, can be seen as a slight improvement from prior quarters. In the rest of the world, our NI orders grew by strong double digit, led by Asia-Pacific, excluding China, and EMEA, coupled with a solid growth in Americas.
We believe our growth was well above market across all those regions, and we are very pleased with the continued share gains driven by the traction of our products are enjoying in the market. With that, happy to turn over to Carla to walk us through our financial results in more details.
Carla De Geyseleer
Thank you, Paolo. Good morning, everybody.
Happy to talk you through the Q3 performance. Let us start with page 7.
This is the usual summary slide of the quarter comparing it to the prior four ones. Clearly a very pleasing picture, as you can see, the green arrows at the left side, good momentum at both the top line and the bottom line.
Now, let me point out three highlights here. Firstly, a good uptake in order growth at over 10% this quarter, and as Paolo mentioned already, it's broad-based across our businesses.
We did have slightly higher contribution from larger projects this quarter, compared to the prior four quarters on average, the large projects added approximately 1.5 percentage points more to our order growth in Q3. Now, secondly, revenue growth accelerated to 5% in the quarter.
That was largely as expected and puts us well on track to deliver on our full-year revenue guidance of low to mid-single-digit growth. Clearly, it was it was good to see the pickup in the execution of the backlog this quarter.
Thirdly, we had another strong quarter in terms of our operating margins, up 100 basis points year on year on a reported basis and 50 basis points on an adjusted basis. We continue to make very good progress operationally, and that allows us to revise our full-year margin guidance, as I will discuss shortly.
Moving to slide 8, our order and revenue bridges for quarter three. A good organic growth this quarter, let us start with the order intake on the left-hand side of the slide.
A strong acceleration in growth to over 10% in local currency in the quarter. Now, all our regions grew high single digit or low double digit.
Even China grew high single digit, led by exceptionally strong growth in the modernization as well as good growth in service. Now, new installation orders in China were down high single digit in quarter three in value and down low single digit in units.
Clearly a marked improvement in China from prior quarters, and as Paolo mentioned it already. Now, growth in new installation orders was close to 16%, and excluding China, new installation orders grew close to 20%.
This quarter, new installations grew faster than modernizations, which grew 13%, and service at mid to high single digit. Now it's also worth noting that the currency headwinds we have been facing in recent quarters reversed this quarter, with now an FX adding 120 basis points to our order growth in quarter three.
Now, moving on to the revenue on the right-hand side of the slide, with a growth of 5.1% in local currencies in quarter three. This is clearly a nice uptake from what we have seen in the first half, which was 1.4%.
As I mentioned earlier, this was led by modernization, where we had good backlog execution in the quarter, and it was also supported by a catch-up from quarter two on a couple of larger modernization projects, which we closed out in the current quarter. Now revenue in new installations was flat in quarter three, as a steep decline in China, down in the high 20s, was offset by good growth elsewhere in the world.
Finally, growth in our service business was accretive to group overall, meaning mid-single digit to high single digit. Finally, a little word on the order backlog.
Order backlog grew 4.5% year on year in local currencies in quarter three. We saw a backlog growth in all the businesses, and that compares to a 3% growth which we reported with our Q2 results.
Regionally, we saw good backlog growth outside China, with EMEA growing mid-single digit, Americas high single digit, and APAC ex-China up double digit. Our backlog margin was stable sequentially, but it improved year on year.
Now moving to the next slide and taking a look at the operating profit. Our operating profit bridges for the quarter and year to date, you see a bit more cost inflation coming through in quarter three, but we made very good progress on the efficiencies.
On a year-on-year basis, the efficiency improvements in procurement are starting to level out, but SG&A, field, and supply chain efficiencies continue to materialize. Now, mix was slightly more favorable in the quarter than we had expected, partly driven by good growth in our service business.
That leads to quite an overall good progress on the operational bucket, which came in at plus 30 million in our Q3 EBIT bridge. Now you will also see the FX, it turned to a small positive in our bridge this quarter, which is I think very welcome a very welcome change from recent quarters of severe FX headwinds.
Now on a year-to-date basis, we saw good operational improvements of 75 million, driven by pricing, driven by mix, and efficiencies. Mix was a greater tailwind in H1 than it was in the current quarter.
Now moving on to the net profit on the next slide. As mentioned, a good development in the net profit this quarter, which was driven by operational improvement, and we also had a little bit of tailwind from lower financial costs below the operating line.
That led to growth in net profit of 17% year on year in quarter three. Now, the growth on a per-share share on a per-share basis is slightly higher due to the lower share count following the cancellation of shares from the buyback program.
On a year-to-date basis, growth in our net profit was 7% year on year, lower than in the current quarter, as we faced a decline in financial income in H1 as well as some FX headwinds. Now moving on to the operating cash flow.
Operating cash flow in Q3 came in slightly higher than last year's level, driven by the uptake in our operating earnings and partly offset by a headwind from the timing of provision utilization and higher tax payments reflected in the other bucket, with net working capital neutral in the quarterly bridge. Now looking at the bridge for a year to date, net working capital is a headwind, partly due to the decline in our Chinese new installation business this year driving lower down payments.
We also had a slightly adverse impact on net working capital coming from the implementation of the ERP system in our US operations, which is gradually reversing. Now moving on to the guidance for '26.
Firstly, our full-year revenue guidance of low to mid-single digit in local currencies remains unchanged. The growth in our backlog and the improvement on the execution of that backlog in quarter three gives us confidence that we can deliver a good final quarter of the year.
Secondly, we are revising our EBIT margin guidance to 13.5% from the earlier 13%. Paolo and I touched now on some of the reasons for this, including efficiency savings, including a good mitigation of cost inflation, and we also now expect a mix to be a slight tailwind in '26.
Now what does that mean for the final quarter of the year? Clearly, we delivered a 13.5% margin year to date, and the implication of this guidance is that we expect a similar level in quarter four as we continue to work hard at mitigating the additional cost inflation we are seeing with pricing and efficiencies.
That also means a revised view on our adjustment items for '26. Firstly, we now expect restructuring costs to be up to 40 million in '26.
That compares to the up to 60 million that we guided you before. As for BuildingMinds, which successfully completed the transaction with LookThrough on September the 30th, this will have no will have no further financial impact on our P&L going forward beyond the 10 million of expenses year to date.
Now, as for the additional cost inflation in '26 related to energy, logistics, and commodity prices, there is no change to the estimate that we provided you in July, which was circa 35 million. Again, I repeat, we are working hard on mitigating actions to offset these inflationary impacts in terms of pricing and efficiency.
Let me also say a little word about the tariffs. Here our estimate remains unchanged from what we have communicated earlier, which is to say an exposed gross P&L impact in '26 of approximately 15 million.
Before I close, a word on our share buyback program. As of yesterday, we had completed 650 million of the total 700 million, covering tranche 1 and tranche 2 together.
Our aim remains to complete the full 700 million by the time that the program ends, and this is November 5th. In conclusion, let me end by thanking, together with my colleagues in the Executive Committee, our close to 70,000 employees across the globe for their efforts.
It was a strong quarter for Schindler, which we all can be proud of, super grateful to all the colleagues around the world. With that, I hand back to Lars.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Carla. Let me remind you briefly of our Capital Markets Day on the 19th of November at our headquarters here in Ebikon in Switzerland.
Please note that you need to register on our Investor Relations website, and that registration closes on October 30th. We look forward, of course, to seeing as many of you there as possible here at our campus.
With that, Paolo and Carla are now happy to take your questions. I would like to ask you to limit yourself to two questions only, given the limited time we have available.
With that, operator, please.
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.
Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press * and 1 on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue.
If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press * and 2. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question.
Anyone who has a question may press * and 1 at this time. The first question comes from Andre Kukhnin from UBS.
Please go ahead.
Andre Kukhnin
Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Can I just start with a broader one with CMD upcoming and just thinking back to your ambition on profitability to achieve close to best-in-class, and given that now your guidance for this year exceeds the target that you had, is that ambition still there? Do you think the path to it can be at a similar pace to what you've been delivering so far?
Paolo Compagna
Good morning, Andre. Paolo speaking here.
You would see me smiling. It's a good question.
The only right answer is bear with us till the Capital Market Day. Why?
Obviously, we have some good plans for the future, which not only reflects on profitability, but on many more things. We talk about profitable growth, as you follow us now very closely.
In that regard, not to spoil too much too early, we would be very happy to have the opportunity discussing with you some details of what we aim to do in the coming few years in the environment all of us we know in more details.
Andre Kukhnin
Got it. Worth a try.
If I can take the second question on pricing. We now got obviously history of raising prices for US tariffs and passing that through.
We've had inflation that was unexpected from beginning of the year because of the Middle East situation, and you seem to be pricing up to pass that through as well. I just wanted to ask about that kind of capacity to implement price in the industry.
Has that really changed now structurally compared to the past? How kind of customer reception has been to these actions that you had to take over the last couple of years?
Paolo Compagna
Andre, that's a good question. Let me put it in the context of what we are doing since the last few years.
Remember, this was one of the key pillars of our recovery plan, and then we translated it into our, I would say, more DNA way of working. This put a bit in a context, you can imagine, when we talk about pricing, we talk less and less about a single action sending out whatever letter, but it's more a broad-based approach we have now in our systems, how we guide our teams in the different businesses and in the different countries.
What you see in our results is actually the mixed result of all those activities. Therefore, to put it in perspective, right, there's no one single big reaction of specific customer segment in a country, but it's more a broad-based approach that we really implement as much as it is accepted by customers, by the way.
They decide what is the level of pricing we can put in the market, right, can be done. Therefore, if you ask what is the response, very different.
There are markets which are more acceptive for translating even completely inflationary increases to the market prices, and markets which are less receptive for it, and then you have to compensate more with efficiencies.
Andre Kukhnin
Great. Thank you very much.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Andre. Next.
Operator
The next question comes from Vivek Midha from Citi. Please go ahead.
Vivek Midha
Thank you very much, everyone. Good morning.
Hope you can hear me well. My first question is around the very good NI order growth in the quarter.
Just to fully understand the drivers, it looks from your chart that the NI order growth was around 5% to 10% in unit terms, but as you said, it was 16% on the local currency value order growth. Could you maybe elaborate on the drivers of that gap, how much is mix, i.e., regional mix or product mix, and how much is underlying pricing?
Thank you.
Paolo Compagna
Good morning, Vivek. I would go, and then, Carla, if I misses some points, you can complete.
Let me also explain here that our NI, new installation growth, if you exclude China, was quite well distributed all over the regions, which is a pleasant feedback also to our modular platform. You remember we were talking about our modular platform for a couple of years, and we've completed the rollout in 20 end of 20 sorry, '25, early '25, sorry.
Actually, throughout '25, we could increase the portion of the modular platform products into our sales. This put into the context, now what we see is also a increasing contribution of those products actually across all markets where we have introduced them.
This is one contributor. The second contributor is, for sure, in that specific quarter, here and there, some larger projects which we could book, and I think the combination was giving the results you've seen.
We can confirm it's not one specific country, it's really across all regions. I repeat it, to be very clear, we might have to exclude China in this broad-based discussion.
Vivek Midha
Understood. If I could quickly follow up on that, you've commented that you've been able to increase the percentage mix of the modular platform.
Could you maybe give us an update of what proportion of your NI orders are covered by that modular platform? Thank you.
Paolo Compagna
Maybe I can give you an insight. It's a bit different, let's say, region by region.
You remember Europe, in the European markets, we were starting first. In Europe, the most, I must say the very most of the sold products are modular platform-related products.
If you go to Asia-Pacific, where we were last introducing it, might be around half or a bit above the half. You can say, if you put a formula over it, it's quite high, very high in European zone, and increasing in AP and Americas.
I hope this gives light
Carla De Geyseleer
to
Vivek Midha
you.
Carla De Geyseleer
What you see is really the results of the progress in the product portfolio. Then a bit of strengthened with the uptake, as Paolo says, in the large project, but it's not only driven by that.
On top of it, we have the solid pricing.
Vivek Midha
Fully understood. My last question is a quick follow-up on your comments around restructuring costs coming in below your original expectations.
Should we think that this is a timing effect and the shortfall gets pushed into 2027, or is it just that you see lower need? Thank you.
Carla De Geyseleer
When you make your plans for restructuring, you base it on certain assumptions, and there are many initiatives, it's rather, I would say, yeah, different need as the initiatives move. Do we see less?
No, because we will continue to work on efficiencies, and we still have some potential out there. We are happy to brief you more on that when we give you more insight on the outlook for '27.
It will be a constant one because otherwise, yeah, we would not be successful in working on the efficiencies.
Vivek Midha
Thank you very much.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Vivek. Next.
Operator
The next question comes from Ines Lefranc from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Ines Lefranc
Hi. I'll ask two questions.
Just my first question, you mentioned Germany potentially recovering and flagged it as one of the countries in Europe that, yeah, might be potentially recovering. Can you give us a bit more color here, please?
Paolo Compagna
Ines, good morning, yes. I was mentioning Germany as one of the larger European markets where we were expecting, I can say, for a couple of years, a significant recovery in residential especially, as the demand was very high, and we have seen for a couple of years also leading indicators being very weak.
You remember, we were reporting also very weak building permits and so on. Now, the situation in Germany, if I might summarize in my words, is the leading indicators are improving.
We see permits increasing, demand exploding, one could say. However, the translation into real orders on the market is still, I must say, to materialize.
There is still a gap between what could be possible in the market and what we really see on executed demand, which, without any speculation, I would put in the light of also geopolitical and economic situation in Germany, which put people in the position to wait a moment before investing, especially. At the same time, we see continuing business in infrastructure, in some commercial segments, but residential segments itself, we would see more potential to come whenever the environment would, how to say, unleash the brakes.
Ines Lefranc
Very clear. Very clear.
Thank you very much. Just on my second question, I wanted whether you could provide a bit more color on the market share gains.
I know you credited modular solutions, but is there a reason why there's something specific about your modular solutions that are enabling these market share gains or any other drivers? Thank you.
Paolo Compagna
Thank you, Ines. Without going to individual market shares, why we see a market share gain is with the modular platform, we have introduced a product range which allows to be, on one hand side, on a very high-quality customer perception level, while having also on the entire value chain benefits coming from the modularity and simplicity of the products.
These two combinations obviously give, in many of the key markets, a good position when it comes to everything which is in low and mid-range. If you remember, we were introducing this year step-wise or in waves also the modular platform in the US for the mid-range.
Especially there, one could see how market shares are moving as a consequence of the benefit of the modular platform.
Ines Lefranc
Thank you very much.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Ines. Next.
Operator
The next question comes from Aron Ceccarelli from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Aron Ceccarelli
Hello. Hi.
Good morning, everybody. Congratulations on a good quarter.
My first question is on cost inflation. I guess you guys would like to probably provide more color at the CMD, but as you look into '27, how would you frame the balance between pricing, wage inflation, and raw materials cost at this stage?
That's the first one, please.
Paolo Compagna
Carla, I leave it to you in a second. I would say, well, looking into '27, someone would need, in today's times, a glass bowl to be able to predict what will happen.
We learned this year what happens with energy cost, especially gasoline and all related to it. Now it's to lay out and say, "Oh, next year, we plan for this and this," would be a very bold position.
We have to stay awake. We have to be very, very conscious that the inflationary environment might further increase.
Now, how we look differently in pricing as a mitigating action against expected wage inflation and inflationary impacts from energy, raw material, and so on, here, we have some structure in place to be closely watching up what happens and always adjusting both the pricing and the efficiency measures. Carla, I would leave it to you also to complete the picture.
Carla De Geyseleer
I think you said already the summary. In terms, I think, of fuel and logistics cost, it is a bit of a crystal ball.
That is number one. We know there is a bit of upward pressure for sure the raw materials, because that is already clear in the areas of copper, aluminum, but also steel is on its way up.
Look, we know that the task is to offset that with efficiencies and with pricing. Up to now, and especially also in quarter three, first of all, efficiencies, we have materialized now over a longer period, and we know we have still a task at hand, we will continue doing our homework there.
In pricing, so far, solid pricing and reasonably successful in mitigating these cost pressures through pricing, we also continue on that road. Yeah.
Aron Ceccarelli
Thank you very much. My follow-up is on your new orders.
The backlog margin is up year over year, if I got it correctly, and stable sequentially. Could you perhaps give us a little bit of color when it comes to the margins of new orders, please?
Carla De Geyseleer
The new orders are very much supporting what you have seen here in quarter three. I repeat, it is sequentially more or less flat, year on year an improvement.
I'm have to make one one exception, and that is China, because that is a bit a negative outlier, because also in China, when it comes to the volume, we see still a decline. We don't see as such an uptake in leading indicators in China, and that means also that in terms of margins, that is continue also to be very much under pressure.
Yeah.
Aron Ceccarelli
Thank you very much.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Aron. Next.
Operator
The next question comes from Martin Hüsler from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Martin Hüsler
Yes, thank you, and good morning, everyone. I have two questions.
Maybe the first one, you mentioned that service was kind of surprising for you also a bit in the third quarter and added positively, obviously, to the mix effect. What was the main driver behind a surprisingly good service business, which I usually think you should have a high visibility?
Paolo Compagna
Yeah. Martin, good morning.
Let's look at the service business in total. Here, again, without going to too many details, might still be a bit different from zone to zone, to country to country, but overall, well, we are not surprised, we are pleased to see that what we were expecting in the beginning of the year is starting materializing.
Let me put this please in context. We can say, yes, we are pleased to see, you remember in Q1 and Q2, we were saying, well, we have a lot of activities on the service business, and we would expect towards Q3 and Q4 to see certain pick-up in recoveries of portfolios.
This we were talking about, and some of you were also asking in the half-year closing, well, how much are we confident that towards end of the year, we might see some recap or gaining portfolio. This is what we now see coming in.
Therefore, when we say we are pleased or we are happy to see that what we were expecting over now a period of few quarters starting to materialize is actually a positive trend on the recoveries, and in many, many countries, a good trend on the retention of our portfolio, which we, I must say, with a big thank-you to all our customers, recognize as a big, big sign of loyalty of our customers to us in many, many markets.
Martin Hüsler
Thanks a lot. The second question is on China, where, obviously, the third-quarter NI Schindler performance was very strong, I would say, against the market.
What do you think is the main driver to this, that you only were down something like 0%
Paolo Compagna
to 5%? On NI, Martin, we're down only 4% or 5%, I think it's more of a flattish development, huh?
I would not be too enthusiastic. I would not be too depressed on this one.
It's more of a flattish development, which we say, in today's environment, is okayish, something to build on and to take it from here.
Martin Hüsler
Nothing special like large projects that you won versus a year ago where probably the mix was a bit different?
Paolo Compagna
Thank you for clarifying. No, nothing which we could now mention as the breakthrough project we booked.
No, it's really a broad-based business. When I was starting to say at the beginning of the call that I'm pleased with the results our teams are generating with our customers, I must say, in almost all the countries, it's really a broad-based, ground-solid business.
This makes us confident, not at least for what we plan for the future. Please, all of us, we should all be very humble recognizing in which environment we all are acting.
Therefore, when I was saying, hey, we're happy, it's less about single results which you see in the numbers, Martin, it's much more that we see a broad-based, solid business and a good, good feedback from customers, which makes us confident.
Martin Hüsler
Thank you.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Martin. Next.
Operator
The next question comes from Nick Housden from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Nick Housden
Yes. Hi, everyone.
Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on the mix tailwinds that you have been talking about.
I think you are quite clear, as far back, I think, as about a year ago that those tailwinds would kind of neutralize or even become slight headwinds, and it seems like you're seeing those actually come in better than you were expecting. I'm just wondering why is that exactly?
Is it just because the service growth has been quite strong, or are there some other dynamics in there?
Carla De Geyseleer
Nick, Carla here. Thank you for the question.
That is indeed a major driver, huh? As Paolo just explained, a very good development in the service business, that is actually the main driver.
As I said, we had then also good margins in the new installation business. Of course, the two helped, but it's mainly the service development.
Nick Housden
Great. Then my second one is on the year-to-date development in modernization margins, just looking for maybe some directional commentary here.
As that business kind of gained scale quarter over quarter, are you seeing margins also expand, or are you kind of reinvesting some of those economies of scale in maybe winning market share?
Paolo Compagna
Nick, that's a very good observation. We were mentioning the growth pace we see modernization, and estimations right or wrong, we believe that, in some markets, we are growing modernization business far higher than the market growth.
We also there, we see a contribution to our increasing service business. This been said, you are right, modernization business has a high importance in Schindler.
It was also mentioned in product developments going very strongly into that business line. As a result, the margins, you could say, are slightly improving, but we also definitely invest margin gains into business, as modernization business growth is one of the key pillars of our mid-term strategy.
Therefore, your observation is spot on, margin are slightly increasing while we reinvest a portion of the gains into business.
Nick Housden
That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Lars Brorson
Thank you, Nick.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Lars Brorson for any closing remarks.
Lars Brorson
Very good. Thank you, Valentina.
Thank you very much for attending today's call. Please feel free to reach out to Investor Relations if you have any follow-ups.
After our Capital Markets Day on November 19th, the next scheduled event is our full-year results call on the February 10th, 2027. With that, thank you very much.
Goodbye.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference.
You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.
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