Karin Larsson
Hello and a warm welcome to the Epiroc Q4 and full year 2025 results presentation. My name is Karin Larsson, Head of IR and Media here at Epiroc, and by my side I have our CEO, Helena Hedblom, and our CFO, Håkan Folin.
As always, they will briefly present the results before we do a Q&A session. Helena, please go ahead.
Helena Hedblom
Thank you, Karin, and hello everyone. I will start with the highlights for the year.
With 79% of our orders deriving from mining, I'm glad to say that the mining demand remained robust in 2025. The customer activity was strongest in gold, copper, and zinc, while nickel was softer.
Of our mining exposure, gold and copper now together represents 65% of orders. In the year, our customers continued to prioritize brownfield expansions and productivity upgrades, as well as exploration, especially in gold and copper.
Infrastructure, which is 21% of our orders received, was more mixed. Drilling rigs and equipment for larger civil engineering projects showed stable demand, whereas attachments for use in construction work remained weak.
On a positive note, the destocking among distributors for attachments came to an end towards the end of the year, and now we are positioning us for growth. Despite currency headwinds weighing on orders, revenues, as well as profit, we managed to grow our orders organically in 2025 by 7% to 63 billion and revenues by 2% to 62 billion.
The adjusted operating margin for the year was 19.6%, somewhat lower than in the previous year, 19.8%, and is explained by tariffs, product mix, and some inefficiencies. Let me however be clear, in 2025, we had a strong focus on cost savings and increased efficiency.
In some areas, such as in attachments, we have done well, but in others, we are still working on improving. During the year, Epiroc delivered many innovations that enhance safety, productivity, and sustainability for customers worldwide, reinforcing our leadership in automation, electrification, and digitalization.
Some are built on proven solutions, like the new Epiroc PCD drill bits, which is the next generation of the popular Powerbit. In this new version, we have seen customers going from 7 meters drilled per standard bit to 400 meters per bit, and often more than that.
With an increased use of automation within drilling, we anticipate good future demand for this type of products. Other innovations that are not upgrades, but rather groundbreaking, are these.
In 2025, we completed the conversion of the Roy Hill Mine's mixed fleet to driverless operation in Australia, creating the world's largest OEM-agnostic autonomous mine. What began as a bold vision is now reality: 78 haul trucks and around 250 ancillary vehicles operate now autonomously, 24/7, in a mature, production-scale solution.
Underground, we advanced mixed-fleet automation at Newmont's Cadia Mine, also in Australia, fully automating one production level, 1,200 meters below ground, using our OEM-agnostic Deep Automation system. This integrates loaders, rock breakers, water cannons, and inspection robots into a single platform, enabling complete remote operations from a surface control room.
The results in both these projects have been impressive: improved safety by removing personnel from dangerous zones, higher productivity through continuous operation, and record-breaking daily tonnage almost every month. At year-end, we had more than 3,900 driverless machines, Epiroc and non-Epiroc machines, in operation, which is an increase of 13% compared to 2024.
Moving on to electrification and starting with a highlight that includes both automation and electrification. In 2025, we won our largest order contract ever, 2.2 billion SEK over 5 years, where we will deliver around 50 fully autonomous and electric surface blasthole rigs to Fortescue in Australia.
This includes cable-electric Pit Viper 271 E rigs and battery-electric SmartROC D65 BE rigs. These driverless machines will be operated remotely from Fortescue's integrated operations center in Perth, which is more than 1,500 kilometers away, and will increase productivity while also reducing carbon emissions.
I would also like to highlight the 5-kilometer battery-trolley line inaugurated at Boliden's Rävliden Mine in Sweden, based on our Minetruck MT42 SG trolley solution, developed in close collaboration with ABB and Boliden. This innovation is delivering remarkable results: productivity is up 23%, ramp speeds are up 50%, maintenance costs down by 25%, and diesel consumption reduced by 80%.
The energy regeneration during downhill hauls further boosts efficiency. Production officially started during the year, and interest from other customers is high.
In total, our electrification revenues amounted to 3.8% of group revenues in 2025. There are 40 mines globally that have ordered our BEVs, battery-electric vehicles, and the majority of our BEV orders in 2025 came from these pre-existing customers.
They have seen that the electric solutions bring many advantages, including increased productivity, as well as reduced ventilation cost. For example, in the Assmang Black Rock Mine in South Africa, our BEV fleet has led to 11% more tons per hour and has reduced energy costs by 18%.
A final slide then of innovations in 2025 before moving into the quarterly results. Safety is at the core of everything we do, and in 2025, we took an important step forward by partnering with Hindustan Zinc to implement a digital collision avoidance system in all their mines in India.
The solution combines advanced sensor technology, real-time positioning, and intelligent alerts to ensure operators have full situational awareness. It's designed to integrate seamlessly with Epiroc's existing automation and digital platforms, creating a connected ecosystem that enhances both safety and productivity.
On the attachment side, we have successfully launched the Epiroc Insight, a telematics solution engineered to transform fleet management of attachments. By combining advanced asset tracking with real-time data insights, users get better control and visibility across their fleets.
Already now, we have more than 5,500 connected attachments worldwide with more than 400 customers. For us, it means valuable insights to further improve the products, as well as to help our customers with proactive maintenance.
Looking into the fourth quarter, we delivered a strong performance driven by robust customer activity within mining. Our orders received grew organically by 11%, and mining activity remained high, particularly in gold.
Organic equipment growth reached 22%, underscoring strong momentum, and our large mining equipment orders amounted to 670 million compared to 820 million last year, signaling continued widespread underlying demand. Also our service grew well organically at 6%.
The growth in exploration demand was high, driven by a combination of a stronger exploration market and a leading offering of advanced exploration drill rigs and drilling tools. Demand in infrastructure and construction remained stable with a healthy activity level for larger civil engineering projects, whereas the demand for attachments was seasonally low.
Our revenues grew 4% organically, and our adjusted operating margin came in at 19.6% compared to 19.7% last year. Despite currency and tariff headwinds, we managed to deliver an organic contribution of 0.6 percentage points.
We have been and we are taking actions to safeguard profitable growth, and I'm glad to see that our progress, the progress in the quarter. Looking deeper then into orders.
In total, orders declined 1%, but the decline is fully explained by currency. Organically, our orders increased 11% to almost 16 billion.
Again, within mining, customer activity remained high, while demand from infrastructure and construction customers remained stable. Sequentially, compared to the previous quarter, group orders increased 7% organically, driven by mining.
Our aftermarket represented 63% of revenues in the quarter, which is the same as in previous year. We had good demand for rock drilling tools and service for mining, while the demand for attachments used in construction was seasonally weak.
As we are mainly exposed to the Northern Hemisphere in our attachment business, the first half of the year is normally stronger, with Q2 being the best, while Q4 is normally one of the weaker quarters. Within service, which represents 41% of our revenues, we achieved the highest growth within our traditional parts and service business.
In total, the organic service revenue growth was 4% in the quarter. Historically, since 2018, we have managed to grow our service business revenue by 8% per year, and we aim to return to these levels.
We have a large and aging fleet, it now sits at 8.6 years on average, and an increased technological height on the fleet, which supports a good foundation for growth. In addition, we have initiatives in place to capture more of the customer share already in 2026 by working more precisely with pricing, leveraging our alternative offering, as well as find other ways of sourcing, then we can increase this share.
If you are new to Epiroc, let me briefly explain the customer share. It's the proportion of Epiroc machines that we serve our that we serve in some form or another.
The last few years, we have had a customer share north of 50%, whereas roughly a third of the fleet has an actual service contract with us. There is, in short, good potential to grow.
Moving on to operational excellence. Over the past year, we have navigated a complex and demanding external environment.
On almost daily basis, geopolitical decisions impact global trade, we keep taking decisive actions to strengthen our resilience and drive profitable growth. The negative net tariff impact on our operating margin was just below 0.5 percentage points in Q4, and our mitigating actions include optimizing logistics and distribution flows, leveraging our global manufacturing footprint, and adjusting our supply base, including key inputs like steel.
Of course, we're also implementing price increases to compensate, and we pay close attention to tariffs, news, and regulations, and we are ready to act if or when things changes. We are also consolidating customer centers and production sites, and we have during 2025 consolidated sites in Germany, in US, and in South Africa, and we continue to consolidate.
This year, we are moving the tools manufacturing site in Canada to Mexico. To become even more efficient in production, we invest further in India, which is now our fifth largest market when it comes to number of employees.
We have more than 1,300 employees in India, and we are creating a global production and R&D hub for both surface and underground equipment. It's not only about producing.
India is a rapidly growing domestic market, and we are already growing at high double digits there. Our increased footprint can safeguard this growth and our deliveries onwards.
Moving on to next slide, then: people and planet. Safety first, of course, and we have had good progress during the year on safety.
Among our 19,055 employees, the total recordable injury frequency rate decreased yet again to 3.9, down from 4.3 last year. Much of our focus is to increase safety awareness in our new entities, as well as for external workforce in production and service.
On the environmental front, we achieved a reduction in emissions in operations driven by renewable energy initiatives. However, transport-related emissions rose due to the increased air freight and route adjustments linked to tariffs.
Håkan, would you mind going through the financials?
Håkan Folin
Yes, Helena. Of course, thank you.
Starting on group level, our group revenues decreased 7% to 16.1 billion, and that's an organic increase, though, of 4%. Here we had currency impact negatively by 11%.
Aftermarket represented 63% of revenues in the quarter, which was the same level as in Q4 2024, no mix effect between equipment and aftermarket. The operating profit then, EBIT, amounted to 3.2 billion, and this includes item affecting comparability of plus 58 million, mainly relating then to an insurance settlement gain, but also cost for efficiency measures.
Finally, we had a change in provision for the share-based long-term incentive program of minus 4 million. Our operating margin was unchanged at 19.9%.
The adjusted operating margin then, excluding items affecting comparability, decreased somewhat to 19.6% to compare with 19.7% in Q4 2024. As Helena briefly mentioned, the margin was negatively impacted by tariffs with almost 0.5 percentage points.
This negative impact, despite then a lot of efforts ongoing to mitigate, will remain in 2026, although at somewhat lower levels each quarter. However, despite the headwinds, we managed to achieve an organic profit improvement of 0.6 percentage points in the quarter, as you can see in the bridge on the right of the slide.
If we then move on to the business area Equipment & Service, orders here amounted to 12.3 billion, which is actually a strong 13% organic increase, and currency impacted negatively by 12%. To repeat what Helena already said, there was a strong underlying growth within equipment, where we had plus 22% organic orders received increase.
The large orders, the ones that are above 100 million Swedish kronor, were at 670 million this quarter, which is actually down from 820 in Q4 2024. With such an increase, but large orders actually at a lower level, it indicates a really healthy and widespread underlying demand.
For service, we had an organic increase of 6%, and we had here the strongest growth achieved in the traditional service operations. We don't often speak so much about regions, but today I would like to do that.
In local currency, orders received increased with double digits in North America, in Asia-Australia, in Europe, and in South America, in most our geographies. While they actually decreased in Africa-Middle East, but that was against quite tough comparables.
The strong development in North America, which was at 29%, was supported by a large order of automated equipment, including then battery equipment. The nickel exposure, which impacted us quite negatively in the first three quarters of 2025, still remained in Q4 and still remains, despite then the recent increased mineral prices for nickel.
We still have many customers with mines under care and maintenance due to these depressed nickel prices. However, in 2026, we will meet easier comps throughout the year.
If we look sequentially, we had an 8% orders received increase organic, and this was driven then by the mining. To then turn into revenues and also profit for Equipment & Service, for revenues, we had 12.5 billion, corresponding to an organic growth of 4%, and also here then a rather negative impact from currency, minus 10%.
The organic increase on revenues for both equipment and service was 4% respectively, which then means that the mix is the same as it was in Q4 2024. EBIT for Equipment & Service was 2.7 billion, includes 30 million in items affecting comparability in cost for mainly efficiency measures.
If we move to the right-hand side of the slide, we have then the adjusted EBIT, that was 2.8 billion and a margin of 22.1%. This is down from 23.6% last year, and here we have a similar margin pattern as for the group, where tariffs are burdening the EBIT, both currency and tariffs are burdening the EBIT and the margin in negative way.
If we instead compare to the previous quarter, we compare with Q3, we had a small increase on the operating margin for Equipment & Service. Moving on then to the other business area, Tools & Attachments, orders received here decreased with 7%, negative 11% coming from currency, which then implies that organically we had a 4% growth for the business area.
In total, orders for Tools & Attachments were 3.6 billion, and to be compared then with 3.9 billion in the fourth quarter the year before. The organic growth was mainly driven by mining demand.
As anticipated, the demand for attachment was seasonally weak and, again, still being at subdued level. Sequentially, we had an 1% increase in organic orders received.
Next slide, we're now at slide 15. Revenues for Tools & Attachments increased 4% organically and were 3.7 billion.
The operating profit, it increased actually as much as 65% to 537 million, which is up from 326 in the previous year, and this is the highest EBIT ever achieved in this business area. The margin came in at 14.9% versus 8.4% in the previous year, but we did get some help from an insurance settlement gain relating to the acquisition of Stanley.
What was this then? When large acquisitions are made, it's often standard that you have insurance for uncertainties in the valuation of the acquisition, and in this case, we could use this in our favor.
If we instead look at the adjusted profit, then the margin was 12.3% to be compared with 8.4% a year ago, and this is then despite tariffs, currency, and also continued weak construction market. The organic contribution to the margin was 5.2 percentage points.
Much of this improvement is due to the hard work in adjusting the cost base within attachments and also within Stanley Infrastructure. Again, market is still at a low level, but what we see is that we're well positioned to capture market growth and also market share once the construction market turns more positive.
While we are on Tools & Attachments, I would mention already now that this business area has quite an exposure towards tungsten carbide, especially in tools. The prices for tungsten have more than doubled in 2025, and even if the financial impact in Q4 for us is still low, we are anticipating a margin headwind in 2026 of a few tenths of a percentage point for this business area.
Mitigating actions are already in place. For example, we have accelerated our drill bit recycling program, and we already communicated towards our customers that prices will be impacted, and we are working proactively with suppliers both on price and on supply.
Leaving the business areas and moving back on group level and coming to cost, net financials, and tax. In total, the cost for admin, R&D, and marketing were 3% lower, and this is due to lower expenses within marketing while R&D increased somewhat.
In percentage of revenues, it was 16.5 versus 15.9 last year, and we are continuously working on being more efficient on all of these cost items. Net financial items came in at 115 million, which is meaningfully lower than last year.
Explanation is partly due to lower interest net, but also due to exchange rate differences on interest on net financial items. We had a tax expense in the quarter of 742 million, which is very much in line with last year and corresponds to an effective tax rate of 24.0% in the quarter, which also is then in line with our guidance of between 22 to 24%.
Moving on to the cash flow, our operating cash flow was strong at 2.6 billion, however clearly lower than the previous year's record level, which was 4 billion in one quarter. In that quarter, we had more cash released from the working capital, but also in this quarter, we had somewhat lower profit, as well as a bit higher paid taxes.
The cash conversion rate is now 12 months rolling at 90%. It's not at the peak we had in last quarter of 105%, but still, it's at a very solid and good level for a company which has quite strong organic growth.
Then part of the cash flow, of course, is the development within working capital. If we compare to the previous year, net working capital decreased by 9% to 22 billion, or down from 24.3.
However, if we exclude effect of currency, the net working capital actually increased somewhat due to increased inventories, partly offset then by increased payables. However, what I find most relevant is to look at our working capital in relation to revenues, and in the last 12 months, it has decreased to 36.9% versus 37.4%, which means we are using the working capital in a more efficient way now than we were a year ago.
Next slide, then, number 19, on capital efficiency. Our net debt decreased to 11 billion, down from 14.8 last year, and then, of course, supported by our robust cash generation.
Our financial position is strong. We have a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.73, which has improved then from the end of 2024, when it was 0.93.
Return on capital employed was 18.9%, it's down from 20.6%, and this is explained by higher intangible assets, including goodwill, and also somewhat lower profit. Just as a reminder, these are rolling 12 months figures.
At year-end, we had a cash position of 9.6 billion, and I'm sure you wonder now what we will do with our cash. We will keep on investing in organic growth, that is key priority for us.
Then we will do bolt-on acquisitions close to our core. We have not been so active in 2025 on the acquisition front, it's fair to assume then that there will be a higher activity in 2026, but remaining close to our core in the businesses we know best.
Finally, we will distribute cash through regular dividend to our shareholders. That brings me to my last slide of today on the dividend.
Here the Board of Directors proposes to the Annual General Meeting an ordinary dividend to shareholders of 3.80 krona per share, which is the same as last year and equals 4.6 billion in total. It also corresponds to 53% of our net profit, which is in accordance with our dividend policy, and the dividend policy says we should have stable or increasing dividend and it should be half of the net profit over the cycle.
Very much in line with our policy. Dividend is proposed to be paid in two equal installments with the record dates of May 7 and October 19 this year.
With that, thank you, and Helena, back to you.
Helena Hedblom
Thank you, Håkan. Let me finish then with some highlights from Q4.
We had a strong last quarter and achieved 11% organic order growth. For equipment, we had an even higher organic growth, 22%.
High growth in demand for exploration, driven by a combination of a stronger exploration market and a leading offering. Healthy activity in larger civil engineering projects and stable but seasonally low demand for attachments.
Organic contribution to the margin despite currency and tariff headwinds, indicating that our efforts are starting to yield results. What do we then expect onwards?
As we enter into 2026, we are well positioned to capture growth. Mineral prices are high for our main commodities, copper and gold.
We are exposed to attractive performance-critical niches, where our equipment and aftermarket makes a positive difference for productivity. Our customers show great interest in our solutions for automation, mixed-fleet automation, digital safety solutions, as well as for electrification.
We have a comprehensive and market-leading offering within exploration, and we have committed employees who make a positive difference. In the near term, we expect mining demand to remain high, while demand from construction customers is expected to increase somewhat from a low level.
Karin, over to you.
Karin Larsson
Thank you, Helena. Thank you, Håkan.
Before we move into the Q&A session, I'd like to say two things. First, a big thank you to those of you that answered our analyst survey.
Your input is much appreciated, and we will do our best to improve further based on your input. For example, and this leads me to my second point, we will try to provide more information on our margin progression at our CMD in June.
It's going to be hosted in Örebro on June 8 to 9th, and if you have not yet signed up, please do. The seats are filling up rather quickly.
For your information, Volvo AB will also host its CMD when we do it, it's going to be on June 10 in Eskilstuna, it's just an hour away, and we are coordinating the logistics to make it easy and worthwhile to attend both events. Without further ado, let's begin the Q&A.
Please keep the questions short. Operator, you may open the line.
Thank you.
Operator
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 John Kim from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
John Kim
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity.
I'm wondering if we could stay focused on margins for a second. Can you help us unpack the drop-through margins you're seeing in E&S, and how we could think about the cadence of those as we go through cost efficiencies in '26 and perhaps '27?
Håkan Folin
You said E&S, right?
John Kim
Correct.
Håkan Folin
Okay. What we see in E&S then, if we compare with previous quarter, we see a slight improvement.
We had and that improvement also includes then a positive organic flow-through. If we compare with previous quarter, we had somewhat worse mix within E&S, because we had more equipment compared to service.
On the other hand, there are some of these efficiency actions that we are taking that are starting to yield some result as well within Equipment & Service. If we compare with last year, it was if you exclude currency then, it was roughly the same.
We had somewhat negative not roughly the same. If we exclude currency then, we had also a negative organic flow-through.
What I was going to say is that it was roughly in line with the headwinds that we are seeing from the tariffs. I think we had 0.6, right, in negative organic development, and we have said that we have roughly half a percentage point from the tariffs.
John Kim
Okay. Super helpful.
If I could ask again just on kind of the cost efficiency programs, where we are there within the division and what levers you're looking to throw from here?
Håkan Folin
Yeah. In the BA Equipment & Service, they are not as large and as tangible as they are within the other BA, where we are closing a number of factories.
Within Equipment & Service, it's more general efficiency within our service operations. It's also making sure that we are efficient within our administration costs, and we are also working, as I believe we mentioned in the last call, we are consolidating a number of customer centers in order to make sure we are being as efficient in how we serve our customers as well.
They are not as large and tangible to say, now we close one factory, we're going to see a big impact from that, but we are not happy with where we are from a margin point of view for E&S, and therefore we are taking a number of actions there as well.
John Kim
Okay. Thank you.
Håkan Folin
Just to finalize on that. If you look at the development, the organic development for Tools & Attachments was of course very strong in the quarter, and we started with taking more actions in Tools & Attachments earlier, where we had deteriorating margins, while we are, you can say you can call it that we are a bit later in the same process for Equipment & Service.
There should be more to come in terms of efficiency improvements for Equipment & Service.
John Kim
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Chitrita Sinha from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Chitrita Sinha
Good afternoon, Helena and Håkan. Thank you for taking my questions.
I have three, please. My first one is just on the new construction guide.
Could you just give a bit more color on how this has changed sequentially, especially in attachments, given your unchanged comments on a destock amongst customers? Then should we expect a quicker pickup in attachments and therefore a shift of mix towards higher attachments in the next quarter?
Thank you. If we
Helena Hedblom
there has been a clearly, I would say, slow demand for towards the construction market for almost 2 years now. On top of that, we have had this inventory reduction happening in our indirect channels, that we have seen gradually now during the year has come to an end, meaning then that we get the true demand picture into our factories and into Epiroc.
What we have seen is that the dealers are more, slightly more optimistic. We are here, of course, the big market for us here is US and it is Europe.
We see, a slight improvement in demand or we expect a slight improvement in underlying activity levels, but of course from a low level. That's how you should read it.
It has been, of course, it's still it's a low level, but it's we start to see increased activities from a low level, which of course is good.
Chitrita Sinha
Then just to follow up. Just on is there a shift in attachments going forward, given the comments there?
Or is it going to be a similar sort of rate of improvement?
Helena Hedblom
No, no it's I would say the offering we're having, it's the same type of product, it's the same, I would say, mix of attachments. Of course, that has been I would say burdened the growth for us for quite some quarters.
Of course, with a slight pickup in activity level, we should then get that demand into our factories, given that we are successful in capturing that growth, of course. I think we are prepared for that now with the consolidation we have taken as well.
Chitrita Sinha
Very helpful. Thank you.
Then my second question is on the T&A margin, similar to John's question on E&S. Could you please explain the moving parts sequentially?
Then I guess, how should we think about a step-up in the savings from efficiency program coming through, especially into H1 as volumes recover?
Håkan Folin
Within Tools, as I mentioned then when we talked about Equipment & Service, within Tools & Attachments, we have taken more actions earlier than we have done in Equipment & Service, and therefore we are seeing more of the result in the P&L as well. I think if we look at it, I know you asked sequentially, but if we look at year-over-year, that's when we see the really big improvements coming from that we have consolidated factories, we have significantly less underabsorption in Q4 this year than what we had in Q4 2024.
Then sequentially, of course, the difference is a bit smaller. We are now at 12.3, we were at 12.9 in Q2, 11.6 in Q3, it's not a huge difference, but it is that we are seeing a bit more of the savings coming through also in Q4 this year compared to Q3.
Helena Hedblom
Then maybe we could say as well that the consolidation of Essen and Kalmar, that has happened now during Q4, and of course part of those savings we can see in the P&L, but not fully the full savings, of course that we should start to see now moving into 2026.
Håkan Folin
Then just as a word of caution for T&A, I mentioned when I presented also the development of the tungsten prices, which then we expect to be a bit of a headwind for this business area.
Chitrita Sinha
Perfect. Thank you so much.
My final question is just a quick one on nickel. Do you expect any positive development outside Indonesia given the price move?
No,
Helena Hedblom
I think is there has been, as you say, the prices have moved now recently, and that's of course good. What we have seen with the customers where we have existing fleet in nickel, those machines are still, some of those mines are still under care and maintenance, part of the fleet is still parked.
We have not seen an upticking activity levels so far in Q4. Of course, if prices stabilize and continuous up even more, then of course, more nickel mines will then start to be reactivated again.
Chitrita Sinha
Thank you so much. Yeah.
Operator
The next question comes from Edward Hussey from UBS. Please go ahead.
Edward Hussey
Hi Helena and Håkan, thanks for taking my questions. Just first one, could you give us a bit more color on how material the impact from tungsten could be in 2026?
Any color on the magnitude would be massively helpful. Then could you also just explain why this hasn't been a headwind so far?
Is there some kind of lagged effect on input costs? Thank you.
Håkan Folin
If we start with the second, yes, it's lag effect. Prices have increased, but of course we are sitting we have contracts and we are sitting on some inventory, therefore we haven't seen a material impact so far, but it will come now gradually starting basically from now.
Then I mentioned that it will be a few tenths of percentage points on the Tools & Attachments business area. That is our best estimate at the moment.
It's of course depends on our ability to raise prices with customers as well. Everyone is in all our competitors are in a similar situation, we expect competition to act in the same way.
Edward Hussey
That's very helpful. Thanks.
Then just my final question, just on service growth at 6%. You achieved this, despite a large order headwind in the digital business, but I guess at the same time, maybe the nickel headwind has perhaps dissipated and the DRC is abating.
I guess the question is, if I looked at Q1 to Q3, where you averaged 2% growth, if you were to have excluded the DRC and nickel impact, would sort of 6% or higher have been more the growth rate we should have thought about if those headwinds hadn't existed? Thank you.
Helena Hedblom
No, but I think it's it's if we look on as we mentioned, the nickel, the nickel started to go down already in Q4 2024, and we had impact throughout the year. We shared the numbers there last quarter, and of course majority of that drop is aftermarket.
That's a couple of percentage. If that would not have been the case, then the seismic activities in DRC, Kamoa being our largest account in that country, of course that has also had a material impact.
I think you are not that far off in those assumption. If you look on where we are right now, as I say, we still in Q4 see the headwind from, the nickel activities is still, has not improved.
Last year, yes, or 2024, yes, we had these large or two large equipment or deals on digital. I would say that the activity levels in DRC is coming back step-by-step.
That's it's going in the right direction. That's the starting point where we are right now.
Edward Hussey
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Mm.
Operator
The next question comes from Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead.
The next question comes from Christian Hinderaker from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Christian Hinderaker
Yes, morning everyone, and thanks for the time. Maybe I can come back to the E&S margin bridge if that's okay.
If we strip out Roy Hill from Q3, I think that margins are down sequentially, 20 basis points, as of today. I guess curious as what drove that effect.
We know tariffs effectively are as I understand it, unchanged in impact. I know you'd guided previously that they would be less of a headwind in Q4 than Q3.
You've said that the mix in terms of E versus S has not changed. I guess trying to understand why margins are down sequentially.
Håkan Folin
Christian, I would say they are up sequentially. Then, your assumption on ASI Mining, we didn't specify exactly what it was.
We said it was, negative below the below average for Equipment & Service. We also have a negative mix effect if you compare quarter Q3 over Q3, Q3 over Q4.
If we look year-over-year, we have the same share of equipment versus service, but if you compare Q4 to Q3, we have somewhat higher equipment than we have 47% equipment in Q4 and we had 45 in Q3. On tariffs, they are slightly lower in Q4.
We said around 0.5 in Q3, and now we say slightly below 0.5, so that's relatively unchanged. Mix is definitely one factor between equipment and service.
Christian Hinderaker
Okay. Was mix not better, because you said the strongest growth you saw in service was from parts and spares, was the service mix not a positive?
Håkan Folin
Now you're two things there, Christian. One is that we're talking about orders.
That's when we said that orders for within service was more traditional service. Then that is comparing Q4 with Q4 last year, and if I heard you correctly, I think your question was Q4 versus Q3, correct?
That's right. The mix that I'm trying to say is on revenue.
In Q4 now, we had 47% revenue coming from equipment versus 45% in Q3.
Christian Hinderaker
Okay. Maybe if we go to the tariff effect.
I guess I appreciate there's maybe a bit of decimal points here, but you'd guided last quarter there would be less of an effect in the fourth quarter. I guess North American growth was the strongest by region.
As we think about the book-to-bill, or more specifically, you had 20% order growth in North America and 9% sales growth at the group level. On that basis, should we then be expecting an increased tariff effect as we look into 2026, or do you think that you can mitigate that, and so the tariff effect is either flat or down?
Helena Hedblom
I don't think you North America is it's not US, we have some of, Canada is contributing very strongly in the quarter as well, I think you can you it should not increase. It should go tariffs impact should go down.
Håkan Folin
If we look at tariffs as a percentage of revenue, it should be lower in 2026 than what it's been in the last two quarters of 2025.
Christian Hinderaker
Mm. That's very helpful.
Then maybe just a final short one. You mentioned that the large service order, or Ed did, on fourth quarter of 2024.
Can you just remind us when that Has that been delivered, or that's still to come? In digital, those two orders.
Helena Hedblom
That has been delivered. That's connectivity solutions.
Christian Hinderaker
Okay. Thanks so much.
Mm.
Operator
The next question comes from Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead.
Klas Bergelind
Yes. Hi, Helena and Håkan.
Klas at Citi, hope you can hear me now. Just to follow up there on the service growth, looking at orders of 6% growth.
You did that still despite having pretty big headwinds from nickel and DRC. During the last conference call in October, we talked a lot about the issues with the slippage of customer share, and now we have 6% growth all of a sudden, which is nearly 8 to 9% ex-nickel and DRC on my numbers.
The customer share don't move that quickly, I'm just wondering what happened. Was there any sort of easy comp in a certain country, or is the 6% sort of a new level and then add back nickel and DRC?
Thank you.
Helena Hedblom
No, but we have been working on growing our customer share a long time. Look the nickel impact is still there, so that is still a headwind.
DRC is coming back step-by-step, so that is moving in the right direction. We have the strategy to capture customer share, we have a number of initiatives ongoing.
It's both to work on of course on the pricing side, to be more precise, we have developed an alternative offering to capture certain customer types and certain segments, as well as sourcing then in a more optimal way to to be competitive for certain segments. There's a lot of activities ongoing.
As I been saying over the years here, to be more and more precise in how we run our, we'll say, the service business and how to capture that potential that is there, the unserved part of the fleet that is an a great opportunity for us. I'm pleased to see the growth.
It's when I look at the, what to say, the different countries or entities, it's not nothing standing out as being, extraordinary in these numbers. It's healthy, of course healthy activity levels as well, especially towards copper and gold, of course activity levels is high, but also, some larger rebuilds, etc.
No, but I'm pleased to see that our efforts are giving results.
Klas Bergelind
That's good to hear. My second one is on capital allocation.
You say that you will do bolt-ons and that you were not that active in '25, it will be higher activity in '26. I'm just trying to understand where the gaps are.
Obviously mine planning, for example, is an area where you could get stronger versus some of your peers. I'm just trying to understand the margin profile, because when you say that you will do more M&A in '26, Helena, I was under the impression you wanted to improve the margin in what you've acquired first before doing more M&A, or you're targeting more high-margin segments?
Mine planning, for example, is one of those areas where the margins typically are quite high. Just trying to understand a bit in terms of margin profile and where you want to go.
Thank you.
Helena Hedblom
Yeah. No, it's more core products where there are some gaps, close to close to the the core that we have always had.
It's it's and and and aftermarket, I would say. There is there is always opportunities to to capture customer share as well in the aftermarket.
It's more it's it's close close to core, not maybe further out and and maybe not so much related to to to new technologies. There, I think we have a a very comprehensive offering.
There, to your point, we have, we we should leverage organic growth from all these acquisitions that we that we have done over the years and get the synergies from those acquisitions. It's more close to close to the core physical products and and and and aftermarket, we'll say parts and service.
Klas Bergelind
That's good to hear. My quick and final one is on the digital offering, just to connect there.
You obviously need more units here to scale that business and get the margin up. Having spent time with you on the road and from feedback from investor meetings recently, the message seems like you underestimated how quickly you could ramp mixed fleet, Plan & Protect, around Radlink, etc.
You didn't have the right people in place to sell these solutions. That seems to be changing now for the better, and you now have Jesper Kindtler running E&S.
Can you please talk, Helena, how you think that you're a pivot point in terms of being able to ramp the units higher here in digital? Certainly seems like there is a lot of interest from your customers, but curious to hear.
Thank you.
Helena Hedblom
No, but this is of course one of the rationale as well behind creating a business the business areas that we have done, because now we have one leader that can then make sure that we bring in our digital offering into all the large tenders we have for equipment, for example, or where we have the largest fleet or the largest contracts already for parts and service. A lot of the digital offering that we have built over the years, of course, first it's a number of companies, and then you from those companies, you develop an offering, and that is done now.
We have one offering now that is an Epiroc offering, and then to scale that through our customer centers and leverage the strength of the installed base we have we're having, the strong customer relationship, the big deals, that's what I'm the task now of Jesper Kindtler.
Klas Bergelind
Thank you. Mm.
Operator
The next question comes from Alexander Jones from BofA. Please go ahead.
Alexander Jones
Great. Good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions.
The first, if I can, just back on the Tools & Attachments margin. Clearly quite a strong organic contribution to the profit bridge year-on-year.
Are you able to give us a sense of how much of that was the efficiency measures compared to the drop-through of volume growth or other organic elements in the bridge?
Håkan Folin
I would say quite a large portion was related or the majority of the portion was related to efficiency measures. Of course, we had organic growth in terms of revenue as well, but the majority was actually efficiency measure.
I would say especially less underabsorption, given that the attachment business especially has been weak, and most of the actions taken or a lot of the actions relate to attachment, and also then making sure we are more efficient in our production footprint, and that has yielded results now in the last few quarters. Right.
Alexander Jones
Then maybe just Most measures. Okay.
Then maybe one follow-up on the tungsten point. Can you give us a share of costs of the division, if that's a number that you have to hand, of tungsten, just so we can play with the sensitivities as the tungsten price continues to move around?
Thank you.
Håkan Folin
No, I think we stick with what we said, that our best estimation right now is that we are looking at the potential headwind of a few percentage points on the business area margin. A few tenths of a percentage point during 2026.
Good to clarify that.
Alexander Jones
Okay. Thank you.
Mm.
Operator
The next question comes from Magnus Kruber from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Magnus Kruber
Hi Helena, Håkan, Karin. Magnus here from Nordea.
Continuing on the questions around efficiencies in Tools & Attachments there, it's obviously a very solid tailwind you had now in this quarter, if that's right, majority of it coming from that. Can you help us a little bit with how we should expect this to develop in the EBIT margin bridge for the coming quarters?
Is that tailwind going to ease here going forward, or are we sort of having more to come from that?
Helena Hedblom
No, but I think if I look if of course some of the actions we have full effect in the P&L in Q4, for example, but there are those activity levels like the closure of Essen, for example, that happened physically the move happened in Q4. Of course, we have you start downsize a site earlier before you move the equipment, but that's an upside moving into 2026 now.
Then of course, we have also announced the closure of the Langley site, that's also in this business area. Also that will happen even though it will be later this year.
Håkan Folin
If you mean, Magnus, if it's going to ease, are we going to see 5.2 percentage points every quarter, no, we're not. There's actually if your question is more, is there more to come, yes, there's still some more to come, given then the full impact of Essen which will come, and then later on, more rather 2027, also then this closure of the factory in Canada moving into Mexico instead.
Magnus Kruber
Got it. Thank you very much.
Then separately, I noted you didn't have any sort of publicly announced orders in Q4, but still the large orders pretty healthy in that context. Could you talk a little bit about the outlook for large orders going forward?
Is it improving, or expect a stable development?
Helena Hedblom
We expect a stable development. When I look at the business cooking, it's which is we measure it 18, the projects that are in the pipeline the coming 18 months, it's a healthy number of projects across, I would say, the different commodities, a lot towards copper and gold, also replacement towards iron ore.
Majority is brownfield expansion and replacement of existing fleet. Not that we know, some greenfields, but majority it's we don't see a booming greenfield, I think that will happen, step-by-step over the coming years.
A healthy pipeline.
Magnus Kruber
Right. Do you see the project economics of some of the more sort of easy greenfield projects, is that sort of improving with the recent uptick in copper prices, or?
Helena Hedblom
Of course. If the prices stay so on this level, of course, it's incentivize those type of decisions, as well as gold.
Magnus Kruber
Got it. Thank you.
Mm.
Operator
The next question comes from James Moore from Rothschild & Co Redburn. Please go ahead.
James Moore
Afternoon everyone, and thanks for the time. Helena, Håkan, could I just follow up on two topics?
On the Equipment & Service margin, if it's down 60 bps organically, and you mentioned the 50 bps tariff impact, it would sound to me like the majority of the decline related to that. Just wondered whether you think you can pass that on and what the timing of that would look like.
I guess tied to that, how is pricing? You talk about specific actions, but could you quantify whether order pricing has sort of moved up?
Is this a lag, that you're just behind the curve and you'll pass it on, or is that demonstrative of actually facing some net negative? Then I'll tag on the second one if I can.
Helena Hedblom
No, but I think there is a price component, of course, when it comes to tariffs, there is a lead time in. It also depends on in a quarter it can depend on how much you move into a country during that quarter, for example.
I of course there has been a time lag in our ability really to increase prices, even though we have compensated for a part of the tariffs, but more work is ongoing.
James Moore
Okay. One other on Equipment & Service.
Could you say whether the decline in margin was similar in service to equipment, or whether one of them has come down more?
Helena Hedblom
On the tariffs, or?
James Moore
No, on the margin.
Helena Hedblom
No, we will not comment on that. We continue to focus on improving the overall performance of the business area or the segment.
James Moore
Great. If I could try one on digital solutions, would it be possible to roughly quantify the organic order growth and organic sales growth for the full year of '25 for DS?
Could you say whether the margin dilution that you had in the full year was similar to, less than, or more than that you had in 2024, when that was a topic?
Helena Hedblom
Orders in 2025 was less than orders 2024.
Håkan Folin
Partly because we had this, as we talked about before on the call, these two large connectivity orders in Q4.
Helena Hedblom
Then a lot of then, on the efficiency, of course, there we're working on the efficiency as well. I think for digital, it's more about scaling and making sure to leverage the different solutions now and leverage our footprint among customers to really grow the top line.
Karin Larsson
With that, I have to interrupt, unfortunately. James, you can give Alexander and myself a call later, we can further debate this.
Thank you everyone for dialing in. We have taken a list of the names that are remaining, we will call you.
Thank you very much, and don't forget to sign up to the CMD.
Helena Hedblom
Thank you, everyone.
Håkan Folin
Thank you very much.
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