Good afternoon, good morning, everyone. This is Juha from Metso Investor Relations, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this conference call where we review our second-quarter '26 results.

We'll begin with the presentation given by our CEO, Sami Takaluoma, and CFO, Pasi Kyckling, after which we'll be taking your questions. As a reminder, the length of this call is 60 minutes, and we will be making some forward-looking statements, and that's why we have the disclaimer in the presentation deck.

With these short remarks, let's kick off, and I'll be handing over to Sami. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Juha. Good afternoon, good morning also from my behalf.

The key message today is that the second quarter was a strong quarter for Metso. Orders, sales, profitability all improved year on year, and our cash generation also strengthened.

The strongest momentum was in Minerals, where customer activity remained healthy across both equipment and aftermarket. First, I will summarize the Q2 performance and the main business drivers.

Then I will touch our strategy execution and market outlook. After that, CFO Pasi Kyckling will cover the financials, cash flow, balance sheet, and the segments.

Finally, we will then move to the Q&A. In this presentation, we will also address several topics that have been active in the sector recently, including the mining demand, aftermarket trends, aggregate development, margins, and the cash conversion.

Let's start with the Q2 performance. Overall, the quarter confirmed that the customer activity remains healthy, and particularly in the Minerals segment.

We saw strong order growth, continued aftermarket momentum, higher sales, and improved profitability. Importantly, the order growth in Minerals was broad-based and driven by both equipment and aftermarket, not by one single large project.

The key figures here summarize the quarter quite well. Orders increased by 18%, corresponding 16% in constant currencies.

Sales also increased by 6%, and 5% of that organically. Adjusted EBITA €221 million, and the adjusted EBITA margin improved to 16.6%.

Operating cash flow was €206 million, and the rolling 12-month cash flow from operations was €915 million, corresponding a 98% cash conversion rate. The main driver was Minerals, where both equipment and aftermarket orders grew at a double-digit rates.

Here on this slide, you can see the longer time frame showing that the orders increased. Now the book-to-bill was 1.1.

The order backlog was also increased by 13%, being now €3.7 billion, which gives us a good visibility for the future revenues. Sales grew by 6%, and aftermarket represented now 57% of the group sales, 54% 1 year ago.

Adjusted EBITA, as said, margin expanded to 16.6%, with both segments improving year on year. I think the important message is also that the cycle is now translating to more clearly into our numbers.

In Q1, the discussion we had was partly about the timing and conversion, and now in the second quarter, we have seen the strong order growth, improved sales, and also the higher margin and healthy cash flow. During the quarter, we have continued to execute our We Go Beyond strategy and to invest in a capabilities that support our long-term strategic targets.

Customers are very important part of our strategy, and proximity to customers remains as one key factor in the success. We have now expanded our presence in San Juan, in Argentina, the country that is developing in the future as a one of the main mining countries.

We have also had a grand opening in our expanded service center and a new training center, the largest in Metso, in US, Mesa, in Arizona. We also strengthen our presence and footprint close to the customers in western Canadian service center opening.

In Finland here, we have also made a decision in the second quarter to strengthen further the aggregates technology center in Tampere, and the second phase was kicked off during the second quarter. These are not, as such, isolated investments.

They do support the same structural themes that we see across the market. Customers, they want availability, they want productivity, they need lifecycle support, and they definitely need a fast local service response.

We have also strengthened our technology portfolio with launches of the new product, and we have also been focusing for the lithium carbonate process developments. These innovations support our role across the Minerals downstream processing, and they will help our customers to improve their own productivity, resource efficiency, and sustainability.

Save the date here in the slide is a reminder for all of you that September 10th, we will have Metso Summit, where we will talk through a lot of these innovations in a very professional way, recommendation is strong to book the day to your calendars and join the event. As it comes to outlook, our market outlook is unchanged.

We expect the market activity in both Minerals and Aggregates to remain at the current level, as it has been in the second quarter. It is important to note that our outlook is defined, it describes what is expected for the next 6 months, and it's adjusted for seasonality.

With this, I pass the microphone to CFO Pasi.

Thank you, Sami, and good day everyone from my side. I will now go through the financials to more in detail.

Let's start with orders and revenues. The order bridge shows clearly where the order growth came from.

The strongest contribution was from Minerals equipment, followed by Minerals aftermarket. Aggregates order intake was stable.

Overall, group orders increased 18% to €1,462 million. In Minerals, equipment orders increased by 50%, driven specifically by grinding and crushing solutions.

North America performed strongly from market area point of view. The increase was driven by a broad flow of small- and medium-sized orders up to €20 million across commodities and geographies.

Aftermarket orders increased by 13%, reflecting healthy activity across our installed base. In the sales bridge, Minerals aftermarket was the main positive driver of sales growth.

The Minerals equipment sales were lower year on year due to timing of customer projects. Mix improvement in Minerals supported profitability as aftermarket share increased by 17% and represented 68% of segment sales.

Aggregates sales increased 7%, driven by equipment. Overall, our order backlog increased 13% year on year or more than €400 million.

Let's then move to our result bridge. Adjusted EBITA increased from €183 million to €221 million, reflecting an adjusted EBITA margin of 16.6%.

The improvement was driven by higher volumes and improved gross margin, partly offset by higher selling, general, and administrative expenses and other items. The mix was supportive for the EBITA development.

Gross margin improved by almost 200 basis points to 33.3%, and it reflects combination of volume growth, favorable mix, and specifically the increase in Minerals aftermarket share, and overall solid operational execution. Both Aggregates and Minerals improved adjusted EBITA margins year over year.

EPS from continuing operations increased to 15 cents. Operating profit was €185 million compared to €178 million year ago, with operating margin of 13.9%.

I'd like to also remind all of us that year ago we had the positive larger one-off worth of €27 million from the revaluation of STM shares in our second-quarter results. Let's then move forward and look at our cash flow generation.

On rolling 12-month basis, cash generation continues to be healthy. During the second quarter, cash flow from operations improved to €206 million compared to €147 million year ago.

The main driver for that was higher profitability, while the change in net working capital was slightly positive compared to year ago. On rolling 12-month basis, the cash flow from operations was €915 million, corresponding to cash conversion rate of 98%.

As said earlier, we increased our order backlog year on year by €400 million, and the book-to-bill during the second quarter was 1.1, and that is also reflected in our working capital needs. Let's then move and look at our balance sheet.

Our balance sheet continues to be strong. Net debt to EBITDA at the end of second quarter was 1.3 times, and that's below of the ceiling of 1.5 times that we have set as a target.

Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter were €383 million, and we have a €700 million revolving credit facility fully undrawn. During the quarter, we exercised the first option to extend the RCF by 1 year, and it is now maturing in 2031.

We also maintain an investment-grade credit profile and have the Baa2 rating from Moody's with positive outlook. Overall, our balance sheet continues to be strong, and it gives us flexibility to execute our strategy.

We can continue to invest in our service capability, technology, local presence, and selected growth initiatives, while at the same time maintaining disciplined capital allocation. Let's then look at our segments, and start with Aggregates.

The Aggregates orders were €333 million during the quarter, broadly stable year over year, corresponding to 1% organic growth in constant currencies. In Aggregates, demand remained very strong in North America, while Europe was somewhat softer.

In Europe, the Iran war and increased diesel costs specifically impacted negatively the aggregate demand. Equipment orders declined by 1%, while aftermarket orders increased by 6%.

From sales point of view, we reported 8% organic growth in constant currencies. Equipment sales increased 12%, and aftermarket sales declined 4%.

The aftermarket comparison here is affected by the calculation change we implemented in the beginning of the year, and under that, certain products were reclassified from aftermarket to equipment. The impact in second quarter was €8 million in orders and €9 million in sales.

Profitability in Aggregates improved clearly. Adjusted EBITA increased by €11 million to €56 million, and the margin improved more than 200 basis points to 16.3%, supported by higher volumes, strong execution, and overall cost discipline.

Let's then look at our Minerals segment, and Minerals delivered a strong quarter. Orders increased to €1,129 million, corresponding 21% organic growth.

Equipment orders increased by 50%, driven particularly by crushing and grinding solutions, and aftermarket orders increased 13%, and this reflects healthy activity across the installed base in spares and wears as well as in upgrades and modernizations. Book-to-bill was 1.14, and the backlog increased year-over-year 13% to more than €3.1 billion.

Sales increased to €992 million, representing 4% organic growth. The sales growth was aftermarket-led, with aftermarket sales increasing 14% and representing 68% of Minerals segment sales.

Adjusted EBITA also increased, and came in with €182 million, representing 18.3% margin. Here also, close to 200 basis points improvement year over year.

Higher volumes, improved mix, and strong execution overall supported the profitability. With that, I'd like to hand back to you, Sami, for a summary.

Thank you, Pasi. To summarize, strong Minerals demand drove the orders growth in the second quarter.

Healthy pipeline in Minerals also continues. We delivered margin improvement in both of our segments and remained strong in the cash conversation at 98%, and we have continued to invest for our future growth.

To summarize all that, I think the second quarter demonstrates that the positive market drivers, in the Minerals especially, are now translating into stronger orders and higher aftermarket business, resulting improved margins and also healthier cash generation for Metso. With that, back to you, Juha.

Yes, thank you, Sami. Thank you, Pasi.

We are done with the presentation and can open lines for Q&A.

Hi, Sami and Pasi. Thanks for taking my questions.

Just a couple from me. The first one is you talked about the new service center in Argentina and an expansion of the service center in Arizona.

Obviously, there are some big copper projects expected to FID in these two regions fairly soon. Should we see these investments in service centers as a potential lead indicator that you might be winning some of these orders?

Thank you, Ed. Excellent question and excellent logic.

Obviously, we wouldn't be doing investments in this scale if we wouldn't be knowing that there's going to be a good usage of those resources and facilities in the future, this is in line of our expectation of the future orders when it comes to the new projects.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Then maybe just one other. Obviously, very strong underlying growth rates in equipment orders.

Do you sort of have a number that we should think about as the sort of underlying run rate of equipment orders going forward? For example, should we now think that €400 million, excluding any large orders, is the sort of number we should pencil into our models going forwards?

Ed. Thanks for that.

If we first look at second quarter a little bit more in detail, so, indeed, we had very strong sort of what we call the base business, orders in value below €5 million, and we had also very very strong in the sort of a basket from €5 million to €15 million. If I look at '25 and first quarter this year, this was the strongest quarter in these baskets.

I wouldn't directly draw a conclusion that we continue quarter after quarter at this level. Even in these smaller ones, it will be somewhat lumpy.

However, what we take internally from this is that the underlying demand is there. Like I said, it's broad-based.

We also this time highlighted our stronghold, crushing and grinding. Many of these orders came from that.

Again, just penciling the same going forward wouldn't be the right logic. Market activity is there, etc., but we expect to see some volatility also in these smaller orders going forward.

Great. Thanks very much.

Morning, Sami. Morning, Pasi and Juha.

Thanks for the time. I want to start on the crushing and grinding orders in Minerals.

When we think about those as base orders or small- or mid-sized, is that replacement? Is that expansion?

It's obviously brownfield. Then when we think about the scope, i.e., the broader comminution circuit and sort of downstream equipment classes, should we read this as being customers upgrading specific pockets of their process, or are they upgrading the whole setup, and that you've just won share particularly in those product areas, and somebody else has been winning elsewhere?

That's the first one.

It's a combination. Of course, they are brownfield majority of them, and both replacement and then capacity increasements by debottlenecking.

Typically, flow sheet starts from the crushing and screening, and that's the first place that certain investments start to happen when there is a need to stabilize the production levels to the new levels or making sure that the future production is trouble-free. In that sense, I don't draw that kind of conclusion as you suggested that we have been winning this part, and somebody else has been winning the rest, because those discussions continue with some of them with these same customers.

Understood. Can I ask then what we should think about in terms of the Aggregates business?

We had a pre-buy effect that you flagged in the context of the Section 232 tariffs in Q1. You're suggesting that growth in North America was actually coming through in the second quarter still, but the weakness was on Europe, which I presume is then negative.

What's happening in the US, I guess, in particular? How should we think about that through the back half?

Yeah. US has remained a good market.

There are also good positive signals in the air for US in a future as well. There is a highway bill moving, as we speak, in the House, and that typically has been then creating, in a mid-term future, also activity in the Aggregate side.

Some amount of work for US-based customers has been also coming from the data center work. In that sense, the activity level remains good in the US side.

Then the Europe, as you reflected, has okay level, but it was impacted mostly for the increased fuel prices as a contractor type of customers in Europe started to struggle with the profitability with the higher levels. That was slowing down the investment decisions then in this quarter.

Thank you. Then maybe just finally, pumps, did that grow double digit?

Sorry, Christian, say it again. I didn't hear you well.

If we think outside of the demand on crushing and grinding, to areas like pumps, did they see double-digit growth as well, or it was really all from crushing and grinding?

No, it's not absolutely all from crushing and grinding. Also, for example, pumps, where you referred to, we continue to see a good growth, and that continues to be a focus area, it's not only crushing and grinding, but crushing and grinding was specifically strong compared to some of the earlier periods here.

It's certainly pumps. It's also other parts of the flow sheet where the orders came in.

Very clear. Thank you.

Yes, hi. Sami and Pasi, Klas at Citi.

My first question is on the sales outlook in Minerals, and this is the second quarter now where we have weaker equipment revenues versus expectations. If we do the diff in orders and revenues over 6 months, then we should have 300 more backlog, but the backlog moved up by less than €100 million since end of December.

I'm trying to understand if there are any cancellations versus delivery delays, if this is Reko Diq or any other project, because I'm not sure how it can be linked to your divestments as the numbers have been restated. Then moving over to the service growth and the deliveries of the modernization orders, to what extent should we see a sales acceleration here from current level?

I'm trying to sort of see into the second half with weaker equipment versus accelerating service. Sorry, one more on the equipment side.

These equipment orders that are small- and mid-sized, can these improve the equipment revenue run rate already into the second half? Thank you.

Yes, thanks, Klas. That was three good questions.

If I may start from the last one, so, there we see the typical turnaround times, but indeed, some of those we expect will result to revenue already, late this year, not so much maybe third quarter, but fourth quarter, some of those orders that we got now will start to generate revenue. Then there is some longer-lead items as well where it clearly goes to 2027.

Then, your question on backlog is excellent, and I heard you also discussed this with Juha earlier. We are looking at that.

What I can say you right now is that we haven't had any larger cancellations, so that's not the factor. Obviously, in business, orders get cancelled, but during first half of this year, we haven't had any larger ones there.

We have had one customer bankruptcy case where also backlog has been impacted, but there we talk about couple of tens of millions, and the delta that you are highlighting is larger than that. This specific case where we had the customer bankruptcy, the order is not received anytime recently.

It is closer to the merger than today, it has been in the backlog already for a good period of time, and now we cleaned it when the customer went through the bankruptcy process. Then, and we need to get back to you on this backlog development because there is clearly a discontinuation.

The sort of a basic logic has a relatively big gap. Obviously, part of that is FX, etc., but we need to look at that, and we'll come back to you.

Then, finally, you had a question on upgrades and modernizations. There, we continue to see a good amount of orders coming in.

Those orders are typically in service portfolio or aftermarket portfolio, the ones which take a bit longer to translate to revenue. If we think from activity and order intake level, they continue sort of a similar healthy level as a couple of previous quarters, and then the orders that we started to receive basically a year ago, they start to contribute to our revenue now and then even more second half of this year.

Very quick final one on inventories. Inventory days continue to increase.

Happened in the first quarter and now again in the second quarter. Did the margin benefit from any overproduction, and how should we think about the days as we go through into the second half?

Thank you.

No, margins did not benefit from the overproduction. However, where we benefited from the margin is good capacity utilization.

The absorption that we have from our own operation was well-managed, and some of our own manufacturing is running flat out, which is, of course, good from the overall cost performance point of view. Then, you're right.

Inventories continue to trend up, and that is very much in line with the backlog that we have and working with future deliveries. When we zoom in to different inventory categories, the work in progress inventories is the one where we see most of the increase.

Then, when it comes to DIO, our intention is not to sort of increase the inventory and increase the DIO going forward, but it will fluctuate based on the delivery needs that we have for different customer projects.

Thank you.

Hi. Thank you.

Just my question is around margins in the Minerals division. You've obviously had a kind of nice step up year-over-year, but against an easy comp.

Some of that is obviously mix, which is favorable in the quarter. I guess my fundamental question is, when you look at the margin improvement and kind of around that 18% level, is that a fair reflection of the improvements that you've made in the business, the journey to 20% margins, or is this really just a sort of very strong mix quarter, and we shouldn't kind of extrapolate that too much?

Maybe I'll just start there, how much of this sort of margin improvement and being kind of in that 18%-plus range is the structural improvements versus just mix?

Yeah. You are right that it's a soft comparison.

Of course, we had a weaker quarter a year ago, and then we absolutely wanted and needed to show a strong improvement from there. You remember that we had couple of extraordinary items there last year, which are obviously not repeating, and one item that has been corrected to sort of a more normal level, is the mix.

We are not thinking that this mix was extraordinarily good, but rather sort of a normal, and you may remember that in our strategy, overall objective is to grow aftermarket, many reasons behind that. Then the other thing that impacted is simply volumes.

Volumes help, and like we discussed just with Klas, the absorption in this quarter was lower. Our facilities are running full, and that is good for our cost performance.

That's the way how we think about it, and again, more normalization rather than anything else. When we look forward, the order book is there.

We expect that we can run flat out also during the coming period thanks to the order book, and that should support margin development also going forward.

Okay. Maybe just a quick follow-up on the Minerals aftermarket piece.

Another quarter of 10% order growth. Clearly, for most players in the industry, Sandvik as well, we're seeing kind of outsized aftermarket growth rates versus what we would maybe consider normal, whether that's a kind of high single-digit number.

I guess, could you maybe just walk us through what you think is happening in the industry that's allowing this? Is it that you're getting a bit more price?

Is it the rebuilds, or maybe to what extent, is it some of your own initiatives, whether that's kind of penetration, attachment rates, or higher value of service per machine? Just trying to trade off how much are we relying on the market, can that continue, versus some of your own initiatives around aftermarket?

Thank you.

Thank you. Maybe I can shed some light for that question.

This one as well, it's a combination, of course. Pricing is one element, and we have been doing good pricing strategy and execution as well, it has a certain impact.

I would highlight in our aftermarket growth journey and story that it's very much the centerpiece of the strategy that we launched third quarter last year, meaning that we have also done inside Metso certain changes in the focus areas. We have put investments in, and the customer base, of course, is also in a good condition, meaning the market is positive for our customers.

They want to invest for the aftermarket, and this is also one element that is creating this growth. In our thinking, we are targeting for those strong single-digit growths, but I don't complain that we have been going a little bit beyond that one now in the last three quarters.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Yes, hello. Thank you very much, and good afternoon.

A few questions, please, and starting with the new equipment orders. How should we think about this very big number of underlying orders this quarter?

It is about €400 million. It's twice what it historically been for some time.

What triggered this base to actually double all of a sudden in Q2? Is it a significant part of your pipeline that quickly converted, and why we shouldn't consider this €400 million as perhaps a new level, at least for a few quarters?

Thank you, Vlad. It's reflecting the good, strong pipeline that has been there and which we have been working very actively with the customers.

We are very happy that this work that we are doing all over the world in a different countries for these cases is yielding the results, and especially now in the second quarter, it was very successful to close those deals. As Pasi was already in earlier question outlining, we do see very healthy pipeline also for the future.

Capital equipment business is always having certain elements that the decision-making is sometimes very fast for this replacement, and sometimes, when everything is clear, it can still take some time. I think the good way of thinking is that there is a good pipeline.

Metso is doing a good work with the customers, and it's definitely seen as a quality supplier for these needs, and we continue our work on our side with the customers.

That's great, Sami. Really appreciate the color.

Can I follow up on this and just say, if you think about the very near-term pipeline, something which you think is very realistic, it will come through quickly, is the pipeline reduced after this quarter, or it's still as good as it was when you were entering Q2?

Of course, from the pipeline, we have converted to the orders those ones that you also mentioned. At the same time, every week, every month, there is new opportunities starting to develop in a different stages.

In that sense, pipeline remains very good-looking and healthy good-looking for going forward as well, despite that we've converted very nice amount from the pipeline to the orders in the second quarter.

That's great. Really appreciate it.

Final one from me. There was a sizeable capacity adjustment cost in Minerals.

Could you give us some color what it was linked to?

Yes. Thank you, Vlad.

Indeed, as adjustment items, we reported some costs, and it basically links to two items. The first one is that we are doing some efficiency work internally that resulted to the sort of one-off type implementation costs that is reported there.

Then the second one is that we have in our backlog still a couple of legacy projects in solutions that we have disposed, and there was some costs related to those. That is basically what we had in, well, Minerals, and that represents also the group-level adjustments in the second quarter.

That's very helpful color. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question, Sami and Pasi.

Two questions from my side. One on the orders again.

Appreciate €400 million is a decent level underlying, but I was wondering, how do you think from here about the large orders coming through? Is there still the expectation for this that towards end of this year, early '27, we should see larger projects coming through for you as well?

Then I'll take the second afterwards. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you for that question.

The large projects are developing all the time. There is some news also in the public domains available all the time.

There is no fundamental change in that picture. We also know that these large orders, they are kind of lumpy ones, and they come when they come.

What we do in Metso is to focus off of this small-, medium-sized because that's kind of how the business model is built up, and then we work at the same time for the large ones. Timing of those looks okay.

Second half of '26 is definitely seeing something from that area as well, and then the strong pipeline that is building there. It creates good-looking opportunities from the order perspective for the several quarters ongoing here.

Okay. Thank you.

Second half is any day now, so that sounds good. Second question on revenues.

It sounded a little bit like we should not see too much acceleration of the OE revenues already in the second half, maybe sticking to round about the level where we are at right now, and then we should see a larger OE revenue growth from '27 onwards. On the other side, we should see some aftermarket acceleration into the second half given the strong modernization, but also spare parts orders we've seen first half and end of last year.

Is this the right perception, or am I getting something mixed up here?

Thanks, Tore, and I think directionally you are getting it right. If I provide a little bit more color on the OE side of things, some of the larger orders that we have gotten during more distant previous periods, they have come to sort of end of those project deliveries.

Then the new larger orders that we recorded very late last year, first quarter this year, they start to gradually ramp up to revenue. I'm referring to Birla and Arjum, and then the Tia Maria order that we got in Q1.

With that dynamic, the way how you were sort of thinking is logical. Then when it comes to aftermarket, so, indeed, there, we have been constantly growing the backlog.

Most of the backlog growth is in the aftermarket side of things, and that is gradually turning to revenue, helping us to sort of work with our overall mix, and then, obviously, we all know that aftermarket is the sort of better part of the business from profitability point of view. Then when it comes to Aggregates, and I think your question was mainly Minerals-focused, but in Aggregates, the order intake first half of this year in the equipment side has been really really solid, and we obviously will deliver significant part of that during the second half of the year.

Okay. Understood.

Just following up on the Minerals part, and then one follow-up on Aggregates as well. Briefly on the Minerals part to follow up, second half of last year on the revenue side, we saw very strong revenue growth here, this creates somewhat of a tougher comp second half versus what you've seen in the first half.

Any thoughts from you about this?

It's a factual comment that it is, indeed, like you said, tougher comps, and we'll be against that then when we have a discussion in late October when it comes to third quarter, and then in January when early February when we talk about fourth quarter. I don't know if I have any other thoughts on that.

Appreciate it. Then

just lastly, you mentioned on the Aggregates, you had very strong orders in Q1, partially maybe driven by pre-buying. Do you see a risk of H2 somewhat activity coming down further than in usual years, what we should see sequentially the decrease in H2?

Will it be more pronounced this year, given some of the demand might have been pulled forward already?

Aggregates has much faster cycles than the Minerals in typical way, and also Aggregates has this seasonality. How it looks that 2026 is looking solid from the seasonality point of view.

Typically, there is a good, high activity in the orders in the first quarter, and then declining to the second and third, and then picking up again for the Q4 when the year-end decisions are made. Kind of expecting a similar kind of performance of the market now in this year as we have been used to in the past.

Perfect. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Sami, Pasi. A few questions from my side.

Minerals, please, first. Can we just dive into the order intake one last time and to review, perhaps in a bit more detail, how you would describe the regional development of the 400 million, and perhaps alongside that, the technologies beyond crushing that you've called out?

Just when you look at the pipeline, are you seeing a similar sort of technology development in terms of the demand profile? I'll take them one by one.

I have a couple more. No, thank you.

Thank you, Will, for that. I think during my presentation, I already, from regional point of view, called out North America as sort of stronger than last year and maybe stronger than couple of previous quarters here.

When we look the regional pipeline going forward, obviously, we are organized in seven seven market areas, all of them have a lot of activities, but I would say that North America we expect to continue very very very strong. In the other areas, I don't know if there is anything specific to call out from regional point of view.

Then you had a question, and we discussed it a bit earlier in the call also, when it comes to different business lines or products, and yes, indeed, crushing and grinding we have highlighted here. We already discussed that our pump growth remains intact.

We are growing with double digits, clear double digits there. That has been the trend already for some time.

The same goes for our screening business, also good growth there. Pipeline varies between different products, but we expect, based on the activity level that there is with customers, relatively good activity across the flowsheet offering that we have going forward.

Now I'm talking about the small- and medium-sized orders, the sort of the base business.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Across your business, you've seen developments of input cost or cost changes, and also tariff changes. Can you then comment with regard to the backlog and the order intake bookings, how pricing is evolving, and how you would describe the evolution of backlog or project margins over the last quarter in comparison to the prior year?

Thank you, Will. Again, a very good question.

If I start from just discussing how we see cost inflation generally, obviously the crisis in Middle East have created cost inflation. The way it is visible for us is via the fossil materials, and it is impacting our logistics.

It is impacting energy costs at our foundries. That being said, those sort of energy-related cost items are not a big cost bucket for us.

Logistics is of course important. Then, early on when the crisis broke out, when we started to see those inflationary elements, we've been very actively managing our pricing with our customers.

Let's see how it plays out. It's of course a long game, but so far we are quite happy where we are.

Then when it comes to backlog, obviously, we have certain open exposures there, but I would say that relatively limited. The way how we work with, for example, the larger Minerals capital deals, we basically do back-to-back deals.

When we nail a deal with our customer, then we do the same with our supplier, and sort of the main inflationary risk is sort of mitigated. During the second quarter, I would say that we didn't see anything specific from the sort of a backlog margin conversion point of view.

That tells that in this inflationary environment, so far we have managed the situation relatively well as a company. Obviously, this continues.

I think today we see again oil prices above $100 per barrel and so forth, this is everyday bread and butter for our teams, procurement teams, quotation teams, and others. This is not the first time we do it.

We have learned quite a bit during the COVID times when there was a broad-based inflation.

Maybe to continue one more element is that in the quotations, the price validity, so that is, of course, with the current environment of the whole world, they are quite short. Then we requote based on when the project starts to be alive and when that first validation has been expired.

Thank you. If I could just move on to Aggregates briefly.

When I look at, at least the way I was modeling Q2, your contribution margin was very strong, and I guess the Q2 '25 had a number of costs in there, including your ERP implementation. Is it possible to just sort of frame how you would describe contribution margins or what was in Aggregates that led to such a solid profit performance in Q2 compared to the prior year?

Thanks, Will. In Aggregates, we also had part of those extra costs that we called out a year ago.

Then another factor in Aggregates is this factory utilization. Thanks to obviously, very strong order intake first quarter this year, decent order intake late last year, we are busy, and that is a good situation from the capacity utilization, and then gross cost performance and via that, gross margin or contribution margin point of view.

Last year, also this time of the year, we were ramping up the operations again. You may remember that we had laid off some of our people because lack of work, and so forth, and they were back in business.

That also caused some extra costs during the comparison period. Now we are in full swing with good order backlog and full execution.

That helps with margins and cost performance.

Super. Thanks.

One strategic question. Capital allocation, balance sheet strength is there, good cash flow.

You called out opportunity to allocate to service technology and local presence. How would you describe your thinking around M&A, bolt-on acquisition or larger acquisition opportunities, to expand and further your current strategy, please?

Yeah. As explained when we launched the strategy as well, one part of the growth is planned to be inorganic, and we have a very clear M&A strategy that we are executing.

That means that several interesting discussions are ongoing with the potential targets, and we are executing that part of the strategy all the time as well.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for taking my questions. It will be a couple of follow-up questions starting with service orders in Minerals, which grew strongly year over year, and the sequential development was better than I had expected.

In recent years, Q2 service orders have been down quite meaningfully from Q1, but that was not the case this year. I wondered, did you have any larger service orders in Q2, and how to think about the sequential development going into Q3?

Hi, Andreas. Thanks for the question.

No, we did not have any sort of larger single orders this quarter. What we had was a very solid sort of parts order intake, and then also a continuous good order intake when it comes to our upgrades and modernizations.

Again, that was sort of a similar level as some of the previous quarters. Those are typically a bit bigger ticket items, could be double-digit millions, etc., but that hasn't changed from Q1, from Q4.

Would not explain the positive development. Our own read on this, Andreas, is that it's really the demand-driven increase, and our customers, they want to operate their gold assets, their copper assets with high utilization, and that requires then the services, the aftermarket support that we provide, and it reflection of that healthy market activity.

I would also maybe add one more thing once again. Aftermarket is a centerpiece in our strategy.

We have a lot of execution around this, meaning that the focus inside the company is different than in the past, not saying that it was not in the agenda also in the previous years being one that led those businesses, but now it's kind of stronger than before. I am convinced that the results that we have seen now in the second quarter for the orders are because of the very good market out there, our position, and then our focus for the aftermarket.

If I may still compliment, and we discussed briefly about capital allocation, but like we also showcased in this report, we have invested in our aftermarket presence. It's not only this quarter now.

We highlighted a couple of service centers, etc. If we look at past 12, 18 months, there is number of not very very large individual, but number of smaller investments that we have done, and that's of course resulting to growth as well.

Understood. Thank you.

Then coming back to the backlog phasing. Your total backlog is up by 13% year over year.

Do you see that the backlog for delivery, let's say, within the next 6 months in H2 is also up by around 13% year over year, or has the backlog become longer?

A good question, but also a difficult one. I would say that there are certain elements that have given the sort of execution time of backlog a bit longer, and here I refer, for example, in the aftermarket side for the upgrades and modernizations.

They take longer time to deliver. They are good business for us, but the turnaround time is a bit longer.

That backlog, compared to year ago, has grown more than our backlog in average. Overall, I wouldn't say that there is sort of a significant change.

One aspect also is that we are busy in part of our aftermarket system, and then in some limited areas, that results to somewhat extended delivery times. Again, not a big item as such.

Now so we should expect quite nice revenue growth year over year because of the backlog expansion that we have seen.

Let's see how the execution goes forward, but the backlog growth certainly helps us to deliver future revenue. So

Understood. Then the last question.

You're talking positive market cycle and that it is now leading to a better order conversion. I'm just a bit curious why you decided to continue to guide for stable market activity over the next 6 months.

Are you now seeing that the cycle is stagnating, or why did you decide to not make your outlook a bit more optimistic? Thank you.

Thank you for that question. Market outlook reflects for the next 6 months compared to where we are today, and we have seen good market activity in the second quarter, and we expect to see a similar kind of good market activity going forward.

We are not in a position to see that there would be a significant ramp-up from the good level that we are kind of already been seeing.

Understood. Thank you very much.

All right, we are coming up to the hour and need to wrap up this call. Thanks for listening, thanks for participating.

Before we go, just a reminder of the Metso Summit event on September 10th. It's a fully virtual event showcasing a lot of new technologies, new solutions that we have invented for our customers, and I'm sure will be worthwhile everybody's time.

Next time we'll talk about our numbers will be October 22nd, but I'm sure we'll see many of you before that. Thanks for this, and bye-bye.