Sandvik AB (publ)

Sandvik AB (publ)

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 17, 2026

APIChatGPT

Louise Tjeder

A warm welcome to Sandvik's presentation of the second quarter results 2026. My name is Louise Tjeder, Head of Investor Relations here at Sandvik.

Beside me, I have our CEO, Stefan Widing, and CFO, Cecilia Felton. We will, as usual, start with the presentation.

Stefan and Cecilia will take you through the highlights of the quarter. After that, we go on to the Q&A session.

Without further ado, over to you, Stefan.

Louise Tjeder

Stefan Widing

Thank you, Louise. Welcome also from my side to the second quarter report presentation.

To summarize the quarter, it was a very strong quarter with record revenues and profits. We see strong momentum across key regions and segments, as well as also good price realization, which is of course, very important in the current environment.

Total order intake grew by 17%. Organically we grew by 17% as well.

Total revenues increased by 24%. Organically 23%.

Adjusted EBITA came in at SEK 8.3 billion, up from SEK 5.6 in the prior year period. This corresponds to a margin of 22.6%, up from 19%, and rolling 12-month EBITA margin is now 20.4%.

Adjusted profit for the period, SEK 5.8 billion, up from SEK 3.7. The free operating cash flow came in at SEK 3.6, corresponding to a cash conversion of 46%.

This is on the lower side, but it's driven, of course, by our significantly higher invoicing. We'll go through the components of that a little bit more throughout the presentation.

We'll start with highlighting the acquisition we announced in the quarter, which is very strategic for us. The filter press manufacturer, Diemme Filtration, which is based in Italy.

This means that we are entering a new market segment in mining, filtration, and dewatering. This will also form the base for a new filtration division within rock processing.

We have said for a number of years that we have a strategy to grow in attractive niches in Downstream's mining. We started three years ago with the acquisition of Schenck to complement our crushers with screens.

This is now these next steps we're taking as we also now go then into filtration and dewatering. This is a very attractive business.

Besides the structural growth in mining, filtration is growing even faster. This business market that they are in is growing around 15% per year, driven also by regulatory trends, where mine operations want to de-risk their tailing dams, and also to get the permits to operate the mine.

They increasingly move to filter presses instead. You need large filter presses for this, and in this segment, Diemme Filtration is the market leader.

They have a total addressable market of SEK 20 billion in their core offering. If we add also adjacent offerings that they have, it increases further.

Good growth, as I said. The company has revenues of SEK 1.1 billion expected this year, accreting margins and a high share of aftermarket.

All the attributes that we would like to see in what we call then the attractive niches in Downstream's mining. A very strategic acquisition for us in the quarter.

Other key strategic highlights in the quarter, listed here. Dormer Pramet released a new turning grade, with increased tool life and productivity for our customers.

This is an important launch for us to capture the growth opportunities we see in the mid-market. Very important is a completely new generation of AutoMine called AutoMine Aura.

This is a complete rewrite of the AutoMine platform. Making sure we are on the latest and the modern technology platform that can scale for the future.

It also adds a significant new feature, such as 3D mapping in real time. Currently today, the automation solutions used in mines have a 2D navigation system.

Going full 3D means that we can, in real time, map the tunnel of the mine. We can see things like potholes and rocks on the ground.

Overall, it means we can increase the speed of the automated equipment by over 15%. This has also been validated by customers in their natural environment.

Really important new technology step for us in AutoMine to make it easier to deploy, easier to use, and increase productivity further. Intelligent Manufacturing, in collaboration with Machining, have inaugurated a new innovation hub in Pune, India.

This is a good talent pool, not only for software and AI staff in general, but also for CAM engineers. There's a lot of CAM software companies there, CAD and CAM, I should say.

It's a good place for us to have a new innovation hub that we expect to scale up to around 400 people now in the midterm. An important part in growing our digital offering.

Looking then at the market development, starting with mining, we continue to see very favorable market environment, both upstreams and downstreams. Of course, favorable commodity prices is what is spurring the high activity.

We see high production rates among customers, and we also have an expanded and also somewhat aging fleet, which means that the consumption of spare parts and maintenance is very high currently. We also see investments in new equipment, and brownfields are making up by far the largest share of this.

I will come back to that. Also very strong demand for both digital and automation solutions in the quarter.

Infrastructure here, we continue to see a recovery both in Europe and North America, in both aggregates and demolition and recycling. Asia is a bit more flattish.

It continues to be muted by the market in China, which continues to be fairly muted. If we look at industrial manufacturing, we see a good market development almost across the board.

Very positively, we see an underlying improved sentiment in general industry with some underlying volume increases. We continue to see very strong aerospace and defense.

Light vehicles is the only segment I would call weaker this quarter. Europe is flattish.

North America, flattish, a little bit stronger than Europe, but still flattish underlying. China is down in the quarter.

India is up. The rest of the world is also flattish.

Mining and energy is improving. I would say it's maybe the segment that is improving in the most interesting way.

We see quite strong demand then from energy customers, as they are delivering gas turbines and diesel generators to data centers. Transportation, also positive, a little more flattish in Europe, but otherwise good across the board in the world.

Underlying medical and electronics, also strong, especially driven by Europe. These are the underlying market trends.

Now looking at how our organic order intake development for cutting tools look like. It, of course, reflects very closely, there are a few things that sticks out.

If you look here, general industry, aerospace, and defense are up double-digits across the board. Light vehicles, a bit weaker, up mid-single in Europe, double in North America, high single in China, and overall up high single-digits.

Looking at then the underlying market trend, you will understand that it's quite a lot of price and other effects in this. This does not reflect so much the underlying market.

Mining and energy, up double-digits across the board. Transportation, up double-digits except in Europe.

Medical and electronics, here we are a bit down in Europe and North America. This is still a quite small segment for us.

It will be a bit volatile quarter by quarter. This typically reflects more specific customer dynamics that will vary across the quarters.

Over time, we should follow the underlying trend. Order intake and revenues.

Order intake of SEK 37.8 billion, revenues of SEK 36.8 billion, book to bill of a positive 103%. Looking at this separate and then more sequentially, we can see that order intake has now been up double-digits five quarters in a row.

What's pleasing to see here is, of course, that we continue to grow at the highest pace, even though the comparables this quarter was also double-digit growth quarter. Revenues, very clear trend that we are successfully ramping up, converting the orders into revenues.

As you saw previously, we still have a positive book to build. We are still building order backlog.

We now have a good momentum in also the invoicing, which will, of course, turn into profits and cash flow as we go further. Going into the separate business area, starting with mining.

We continue to see high activity, strong demand, and a record high order intake. It's the first quarter where we note over SEK 20 billion in order intake in a single quarter.

Aftermarket business is very strong, driven by parts and services and digital mining technologies. As you can see, you're up 17% in the quarter, which is quite exceptional for the aftermarket business.

Equipment also grew a more modest 2%. On comparables that were all-time high in the same quarter last year.

We still think that's a good number, given where we were last year with a growth of 50%. Excluding major orders, the order intake increased by 13%.

Profitability came in at SEK 3.8 billion, a margin of 20.5%. Here, the organic operating leverage was 25%, which is on the weaker side.

We had a couple of one-offs in the quarter that impacted negatively. We had some litigation costs related to a settlement and also one customer mine, a diamond mine in South Africa closed, which hit us a little bit in the quarter.

Currency also had a negative impact of 60 basis points. You can also see the breakdown there that brownfield continues to be very strong, 66% of sales or order intake, I should say.

Greenfield, 9%, and replacement, 26%. This is very much driven by strength in brownfield.

Greenfield and replacements are also very strong. Rock processing, then solid demand in mining, a positive development also in demolition and recycling and aggregates.

Total order intake increased by 8%, organic increase by 7%. Here, we also got a major order from LKAB in the quarter of SEK 173 million.

This is fairly unusual for us to get orders of this size in rock processing. I think it's a good sign that the broader offering that we are putting together also increases our potential to get larger orders also in rock processing.

Overall, the organic order intake growth was down 6%. Profitability, SEK 392 million, 14.6%.

They had an operating leverage of 25%, which is approximately where they should be, but they had a dilution from currency then of 50 basis points offsetting this. This margin is still not where we want them to be over time, but is a significant improvement versus the relatively poor Q1.

As we convert now the order intake into invoicing, as we usually have a better second half of the year, we expect this to continue to trend in the right direction. Machining, of course, a lot happening here in the quarter.

We see, as I already mentioned, solid broad-based demand for cutting tools with strong growth in all key regions. Underlying demand has improved in general industry and was strong in, for example, aerospace and defense, also energy and mining, and transportation.

Total order intake increased by 29%, and of this, the growth was 30%. As we also write in the report, the cutting tool organic growth was 20%, and on the sales side or revenue side, 19%.

Daily order intake, stable in the beginning of this quarter, but as we have also said, unusually high uncertainty, driven both by geopolitical environment and the tungsten price dynamics means you should take this for what it is. It's an observation of the first couple of weeks.

Profitability was very strong, SEK 4.2 billion, almost double from the same period last year. This corresponds to a margin of 28.7%.

This is driven by higher volumes, good price realization, good cost absorption in powder, and also the savings program. We also have a temporary effect in this number.

You know that we have a temporary effect from the increased powder prices, which means that we are selling at market prices, and we bought the raw material at a cheaper price. It's a temporary effect that is partly offset by that we are lagging a little bit on the price increases in cutting tools to offset this increased raw material cost.

The net effect of this is a +SEK 550 million, corresponding to 380 basis points. If you want to take out these temporary powder effects and look at the more sustainable margin, you are around 25% in the quarter.

The organic operating leverage was good at 55%, and also, if you exclude powder, the cutting tool business had a good operating leverage in the quarter. Currency, slightly negative then by 20 basis points.

Intelligent Manufacturing, a very solid quarter, good broad-based demand in both CAM and metrology software. High single-digit organic order intake growth in new licenses, and continued strong growth in the subscription sales.

Total order intake increased by 15%, organically 7%. As you can see in the table in the bottom right corner, the subscription transition impact was about 2 percentage points on both orders and revenues.

If we normalize for that, we are approximately where they should be, high single-digits to low double-digit organic growth. Good profitability development as well, SEK 198 million, up from SEK 151 million with a margin of 22.5% and a leverage of 41%.

Slightly dilutive from currency of 40 basis points, but accretive from the reseller acquisitions of 110 basis points. With that, I hand over to you, Cecilia.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

Thank you, Stefan. All right, let's dive into the numbers in a bit more detail together.

As Stefan mentioned, we had good growth on both orders and revenues. Orders reached SEK 37.8 billion, and revenues SEK 36.8 billion.

Adjusted EBITA came in at SEK 8.3 billion, which corresponds to a margin of 22.6%. Looking further down the P&L, the net financial items came down year-over-year.

I will show you a bit more details on the development there in a few minutes. The tax rate, excluding items affecting comparability and also on a normalized basis, was 24.2%.

Net working capital continued to trend downwards. On a 12-month rolling basis, we are now at 27.5%, and it's an improvement, as you can see here, of 2.1 percentage points compared to last year.

Free operating cash flow came in at SEK 3.6 billion, and this corresponds to a cash conversion of 46%. You can also see here that ROS improved year-over-year, and also that we had good growth in adjusted EPS.

As I said, Adjusted EBITA increased year-over-year. It reached SEK 8.3 billion.

It's an increase of 48% compared to last year. This is driven by a combination of higher volumes, strong price realizations, and cost savings.

As Stefan mentioned, we also have this timing effect from the tungsten price development, SEK 550 million in the quarter. At group level, that corresponds to an in-quarter effect on the margin of 150 basis points.

A good organic leverage of 40%. Currency was dilutive by 50 basis points.

On a 12-month rolling basis, the Adjusted EBITA margin is now at 20.4%. If we continue with the EBITDA bridge, as usual, starting with the organic column.

Here you can see that revenues grew by around SEK 7 billion and Adjusted EBITDA by SEK 2.8 billion. As I said, this gives a leverage of 40% and an accretion to the margin of 4.1 percentage points.

Currency was dilutive by half a percentage point and structure was neutral, which brings us to a margin of 22.6%. If we continue down the P&L, looking at the net financials, it came down year-over-year to SEK 254 million.

As you can see here in the table, this is driven by a lower interest net, which is a result of lower borrowed volumes. The reported tax rate came in at 25%.

If we exclude items affecting comparability, also on a normalized basis, it was 24.2%, within the guided range for the year. Looking at the balance sheet, starting with working capital, as I said, we continue to trend downwards in relation to revenues, as you can see in the blue line here on the left-hand side.

On the right-hand side, you can see that the improvement was driven by all business areas in the quarter. Free operating cash flow was SEK 3.6 billion, as I said, corresponding to a cash conversion of 46%.

If you look at the graph here on the left, you can see that on a 12-month rolling basis, cash conversion is now at 80%. In the table, you can see the year-over-year development, where EBITDA adjusted for non-cash, was significantly higher compared to last year.

CapEx was largely in line, a slight increase, you can see the impact of the networking capital buildup. Financial net debt increased sequentially from Q1 into Q2.

This was driven by the dividend payment in May. That also resulted in a slight uptick of financial net debt over EBITDA, we're now at one.

Capitalized leases were largely unchanged in the quarter. Pension liability came down a little bit, driven by higher discount rates.

A net debt of SEK 37 billion. Looking at outcome versus guidance, you can see currency, it came out at -SEK 173 million.

On a year-to-date basis, CapEx is now at SEK 1.8 billion, interest net at SEK 0.3 billion, and the normalized tax rate at 24.1%. Looking ahead at the third quarter and full year.

Here, if we start with the third quarter, we expect a positive currency effect of around SEK 0.2 billion, this is based on the currency rates per the last of June. We also expect to continue to have a positive timing effect from the development of the tungsten prices.

In the third quarter, we estimate this to be around SEK 0.2 billion. For the full year, we have left guidance for CapEx, interest net, and tax rate unchanged.

With that, I will hand back to you, Stefan.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

Thank you. Going into the conclusion.

To summarize the market and macro environment, we continue to see strong momentum in mining, recovery and demolition and recycling and aggregates during the first half of the year. We also see improved sentiment in general industry and continued strong demand in several other segments, such as aerospace and defense.

Of course, the political and macroeconomic environment is very uncertain with everything going on in the world. We don't see an impact of that as of yet.

The trends we are seeing is underlying positive, of course, this creates increased uncertainty. Our financial performance is very strong in the quarter, order intake and revenues grew double-digits.

We have record profits and margins above our target range even. If you look at the unadjusted EPS, the growth in the quarter was 63% and over 50% if we look at the adjusted number, which is, of course, a very strong development.

We continue also to make strategic process. We have entered the filtration and dewatering segment with the acquisition of Diemme Filtration.

We have also strengthened our leading electric offer with our first surface drill rig that is electric. It is a top hammer drill.

Also shown here, a number of other innovations that we have launched in the quarter. We continue to execute on our strategy, which also means consistent delivery every quarter while we are continuing to build Sandvik stronger in the long term.

I think we have shown in this quarter that we are capturing key business opportunities and responding quickly to both market and customer needs. Sandvik continues to be a very strong platform with a strong culture and the mindset where we are winning together.

Thank you so much. Let us head to the Q&A.

Stefan Widing

Louise Tjeder

Thank you, Stefan and Cecilia. Yes, indeed, it is time for the questions.

Operator, we can take the first question, please.

Louise Tjeder

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on a touch-tone telephone.

You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two.

Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time.

The first question comes from the line of Chitrita Sinha from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Operator

Chitrita Sinha

Hi, Stefan, Cecilia. Thank you for taking my questions.

I have two, if I may. The first one is just on the machining margin.

As you said, if we strip out the impact of the 380 basis points relating to tungsten, then the underlying margin should be 25%, clearly a very strong result. All things being equal, should we expect a 25% margin to be the underlying level, or is there anything else that we need to be aware of?

Thank you.

Chitrita Sinha

Cecilia Felton

I can start. You can see if you want to add something there.

When we break down the margin for this quarter, we have the temporary timing effect. It has a positive in-quarter impact of 380 basis points.

As you said, that will come down as per the guidance for Q3. What will remain is still good profitability in our tungsten mine at these high tungsten prices.

We also get good fixed cost absorption in the powder division. On the cutting tool side, in the second quarter, price versus inflation was still a bit dilutive.

It's of course very much volume dependent.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

No surprises.

Stefan Widing

Chitrita Sinha

Thank you.

Chitrita Sinha

Cecilia Felton

No. Mm-hmm.

Cecilia Felton

Chitrita Sinha

Okay. Thank you.

My second question is just relating to the aftermarket development in mining. Can you please elaborate on the drivers of the 17% year-on-year growth, as this is now the second quarter of double-digit growth now here this year?

Chitrita Sinha

Stefan Widing

Yes. As we also mentioned, the primary drivers are parts and services and digital technologies.

Digital technologies has very good growth driven by automation and Deswik, which is mine planning software. Parts and service is driven by a number of things.

Of course, customers are using the equipment to the fullest extent. We have an expanding fleet.

We talked about that before. Also, the fleet is fairly old.

All of those things are driving aftermarket demand or parts and services. Also, the fact that the fleet we are now putting out there is more advanced machines, which tends to also increase the aftermarket per machine because it's more advanced, and it becomes more sticky in terms of the aftermarket coming to us since it's difficult for others to service that type of equipment.

We can also say that on the consumable side, meaning the combination of rock tools and ground support, it was also a good development in the quarter overall. Yeah, I could simplify it and say it's across the board, but those are the specific drivers.

Stefan Widing

Chitrita Sinha

Sorry, just to follow up on that, is that development different by commodities, or is there anything notably different versus on the equipment side?

Chitrita Sinha

Stefan Widing

No, I wouldn't say there is a commodity aspect to that. Of course, if you have a commodity that's where you don't want to mine, it would have an impact.

Today, even though it varies a bit, all commodities or most of the commodities are at good levels, especially the commodities related to underground.

Stefan Widing

Chitrita Sinha

Super helpful. Thank you.

Chitrita Sinha

Cecilia Felton

Thank you.

Cecilia Felton

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Alex Jones from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Operator

Alex Jones

Great. Thank you for taking my questions too as well, please.

Maybe first, just to follow up on that service question. Is double-digit sort of order growth now the level you would expect and we should expect for that business, given all of those drivers that you just highlighted?

Or is there anything sort of exceptional about this quarter in particular that means we should expect a slight normalization?

Alex Jones

Stefan Widing

We stick to our long-term guidance of high single-digits. We have now a period behind us with higher growth than that.

I think at some point, it will probably normalize around the more high single-digit, because that's what we see as a sort of a long-term sustainable pace. There has been a number of these things, with high production rates.

We're converting the fleet from maybe a little bit more older equipment to newer equipment. Maybe there are some additional boosts here.

There are, I cannot say, or we are not guiding for either how long that could last, so to say. It's up to you how long you will want to pencil in the double-digits, but if you take a long-term trend view, I would say you should put high single-digits.

Stefan Widing

Alex Jones

Okay. Understood.

Maybe just on machining profits, I guess if I exclude that timing effect, your profits in the business were up about 70% year-over-year. Can you just unpack sort of what the most important drivers of that are and the ones that are a bit less important?

It seems to me as though volume growth in cutting tools isn't especially high at the moment. The tungsten mine profitability versus some of the market share gains versus cost absorption, just to help us understand which are the key ones driving that 70% growth.

Thank you.

Alex Jones

Cecilia Felton

Yes.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

Maybe I can.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

Shall we start with the top line first?

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

Yeah. Let's start with the development on the top line.

Maybe just also to give one data point that could be relevant for you going forward, because I know you're all trying to estimate the split between cutting tools and powder, and what we can say that in the quarter, powder business was 19% of machining from an invoicing point of view. Just to give that as a data point.

If we look at the development of the cutting tool business, up 20%. We are seeing, and what we expect is very difficult for us to see this fully through, of course, but around the 7%-ish pre-buy effect.

Orders and revenues are at the same level in Q2. If you remember, we had a higher order intake in Q1, but we are, in a way, still sitting on that backlog, even if, of course, we have delivered the orders in March, but it has been refilled by new pre-buys.

This is, in our view of it, that it is expectations of more price increases later in the year, which is a reasonable expectation. Customers are sitting on a little bit higher inventory levels at the moment because of that.

20% cutting tools, maybe 7%-ish is a pre-buy effect. Of course, there's a price effect in there.

What you have left is an underlying market-driven volume of low single-digits. Can add maybe 1% or so to that for us because we see we are taking some market shares.

We also see some longer-term restocking, which is normal in a cyclical upturn, to adding to that. The underlying, let's say, volume type development is still in the high single-digits, you could say.

Some of that, this restocking dynamic, the rest underlying and market share. There is a volume effect, and I think that helps in this.

If you take it from there.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

Looking at the margin development, this temporary tungsten pricing effect is the biggest contributor to the year-over-year margin development. As I also said, we have a material impact also from better profitability in our mine and good fixed cost absorption in the powder business.

On the cutting tool side, price versus inflation is dilutive on the cutting tools, as we're still lagging on the raw material costs in comparison to the price increases that we've done. We get positive leverage on higher volumes, we have the restructuring program.

The powder business, both the temporary and the fixed cost absorption, both of those have a sizable impact on the year-over-year development on the margin.

Cecilia Felton

Alex Jones

Just to clarify, that price cost element is also negative in absolute terms? It's not just margin dilutive because you're raising price a lot and cost is going up the same, but it's actually negative on absolute profit dollars in cutting tools?

Alex Jones

Cecilia Felton

Yes.

Cecilia Felton

Alex Jones

Okay.

Alex Jones

Cecilia Felton

Yes. The net effect of the positive absolute effect in powder and cutting tools, that's the SEK 550 million together.

Cecilia Felton

Alex Jones

Understood.

Alex Jones

Stefan Widing

The reason we choose to, let's say, provide it like this is because, of course, the negative effect you have on the cutting tool side, that is actually something we are having as profit in our powder business, since that's where the money end up. It makes sense if you look at machining as a whole to look at the net effect of this.

Stefan Widing

Alex Jones

Yeah.

Alex Jones

Operator

We now have a question from the line of John Kim from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Operator

John Kim

Hi, good afternoon. Two from my side as well if I may.

Staying on the topic of tungsten, if we use the notionals and track that versus what developed in Q1 and Q2, I think it might be fair to say there's a little bit of a disconnect. Perhaps any guidance here on how we should think about modeling powder price ups and the framework agreements as we head to Q3 and Q4?

John Kim

Cecilia Felton

I can start, you can see if you want to add something in. It's, of course, quite a few parameters to take into consideration.

First, you need to look at the APT price development, you also need to look at the scrap price. Earlier, they were fairly similar, actually diverged quite a lot recently.

If you have that as a starting point, you need to take into consideration that we say that about 55% of the material that we use on average is recycled material, and the rest is virgin material, either from our own mine or from other mines outside of China. That's some of the parameters you need to think about.

As Stefan said, powder share of machining total invoicing is around 19% in the quarter. Which also means then if you do the math, that volumes are down.

We also said that in Q1 of this year for the powder business, and they are down low double digits.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

In tonnage.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

Sorry?

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

In tonnage.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

In tonnage. Yes.

Thank you. Of course, when you look at these indices and you take a quarter average comparing with another quarter average a year ago, and you have very sharp development during the quarter, that can also skew the picture.

I think there it's important to do a more precise calculation, also looking at how the pricing has developed within the quarter. I think those are a few things that can maybe help when you try to model the impact here.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

Yeah, I think this with averages, it's a very important point because you almost have to do the calculation on a weekly basis to get even more accurate. Personally, I think this quarter is basically been impossible from an outsider to predict this number because it's basically a mathematical exercise.

You don't have all the information. Even for us, if I look at looking forward a quarter ago, it's very difficult even for us to assess these impacts because when you have things going up 700% over a quarter in a steep curve, the timings becomes very important.

That's also why we are trying to guide a little bit more and provide a little bit more data. Going forward, because now, of course, the prices have been quite stable during Q2.

Taking this and the new information you're getting, if the tungsten prices stay where they are, it should be a more easily predictable development going forward.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

Maybe also on the volume, taking orders.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

Yeah, good point. Another thing we want to remind you of is that we had very high powder order intake in Q4 and also Q1.

The normal thing in the powder business is that we take frame orders at the beginning of the year for the whole year. Then, now it happened also in Q4 because of this dynamics customer wanted to place orders earlier to secure supply.

This also means that now in Q2, for example, we are basically not taking any orders for next year. We have the orders already.

The order effect you're seeing is the revaluation of the order backlog based on increased tungsten prices. If you are modeling a forward rolling 12-months order intake to always have the next 12-months in the order backlog, then you will also end up wrong.

What happens now is the backlog is shortening. Then in the fall, we will open up the order books for next year.

We have customers wanting to place orders now. We don't want to take them because it's such an uncertain situation.

We prefer to wait with that, then we'll open up the order books in the fall. Maybe I should say primarily in Q4 as well.

Stefan Widing

John Kim

Okay. Super helpful.

I want to pivot to mining for a second. Could you help us unpack the operational leverage in the division in Q2?

The incremental year-on-year, I want to say 20 basis points, 30 basis points here, you had some forex headwinds. You mentioned the mine closure in South Africa, did the drop-through margins and the velocity of the equipment delivery meet expectations, or is there some kind of one-off or timing effects we need to be thinking about in the print?

John Kim

Cecilia Felton

Yeah. What we've said for mining is that a normal leverage is around 30%.

Now we came in at 25% in this quarter, that is primarily the result of those two one-off items that we mentioned. First, a settlement for a litigation, then one of costs related to this diamond mine that was effectively put into restructuring.

It is those two. This is not a drag that will continue in coming quarters.

It was specific to the second quarter.

Cecilia Felton

John Kim

Just a quick follow-up, if I may. Is there any change in the timeline from book to bill or order to revenue recognition right now?

John Kim

Stefan Widing

No, I would say we're still around this slightly elevated, so maybe 10-11 months is where we are sitting with lead time.

Stefan Widing

John Kim

Okay. Thank you.

John Kim

Cecilia Felton

Thank you.

Cecilia Felton

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Operator

Daniela Costa

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you for taking my question. Sorry to drill back into the tungsten, just wanted to understand, you mentioned that you think clients might be expecting more price increases on the tooling going forward, how do we square that with tungsten price in Europe seems to have flattened out over the last couple of months.

I guess tools sold out of China probably have significantly lower prices now. Why do you think it's possible to put more price increases?

That's the first question. Just on the mats, I think in the last quarter, you have mentioned that you had a raw material or a COGS lag that could go up to nine months.

Just wondering why you had a negative net price impact this quarter. Have you started to use things more on spot?

Just to understand exactly why it was negative and not slightly positive given you put prices up at the beginning of the quarter in May.

Daniela Costa

Cecilia Felton

Do you want to start with Chinese competition development?

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

On the price going forward here, you know the dynamic. We have a three-month lag announcing price increases and so on.

Of course, when we announce, if you take the mid-May or the early May price increase we did, that was maybe announced in early February. Even if we already a week after that know we should have done more, we cannot do price increases every week or every month.

It means there is naturally, we have to wait a little bit. That's why it's fairly obvious also when you look compared to other players that there will be more price increases coming.

That should be fairly obvious. In terms of competition from China, I guess you're referring to the tungsten prices are a bit lower in China currently.

This is not a dynamic we are seeing really in our segments also with primarily premium tools. We have always faced cost competition.

That's nothing new. That's been there for ages.

The Chinese players that are exporting are primarily, or they are in the mid-market selling through distribution, always competing on price, nothing new. If you look at what this price differentiation in tungsten between the different regions mean, you apply it to the COGS of the cutting tool, it's something we can manage.

We are selling on value, not price. Of course, there are also many markets where it's a big resistance to going to Chinese tools as well, which is also putting up a bit of a barrier there.

We are confident that whatever price we need to put through, that will also come through.

Stefan Widing

Daniela Costa

Yeah. Good.

I think you answered both questions.

Daniela Costa

Cecilia Felton

All right. Any more?

Cecilia Felton

Operator

We now have a question.

Operator

Cecilia Felton

Oh, sorry. Go on.

Cecilia Felton

Operator

We now have a question from the line of Sebastian Kuenne from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Operator

Sebastian Kuenne

Yeah. Thank you for taking my question.

Again, on tungsten. I don't quite understand when you have a SEK 550 million effect, windfall effect, in Q2, which is a year-on-year effect, how this effect then drops to SEK 200 million in Q3.

I would expect that if you get these time lags through also for the cutting tools, in the next quarters, if anything, the windfall gain should rise. Could you maybe explain a little bit why the windfall itself already subsides now?

That would be my first question. Thank you.

Sebastian Kuenne

Cecilia Felton

Not sure I quite understood the question.

Cecilia Felton

Sebastian Kuenne

You got the SEK 200 million tungsten effect, right? For Q3.

Sebastian Kuenne

Cecilia Felton

Net, yeah. Powder and cutting tools, yes.

Cecilia Felton

Sebastian Kuenne

Powder and cutting tools, yeah.

Sebastian Kuenne

Cecilia Felton

Yes.

Cecilia Felton

Sebastian Kuenne

That means the windfall gain is declining again.

Sebastian Kuenne

Cecilia Felton

What we would consider a temporary effect, because we're only trying to estimate, to isolate what we think is a temporary margin boost or a temporary margin negative impact on the cutting tools. When we do cutting tools price increases that are not, if we come out of a dilutive position, we don't think that it's a temporary boost any longer for the cutting tools.

If that makes sense, maybe.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

And then.

Stefan Widing

Sebastian Kuenne

I thought you had nine months of inventory in cutting tools. Now you have nine months of tungsten inventory for the cutting tool.

You have three months for powder, but nine months for cutting tools. I would've thought that the windfall gain, that timing difference remains rather high, but I might be wrong.

Sebastian Kuenne

Stefan Widing

Yeah. Let me try to explain also.

First of all, on the powder side, you can look at the tungsten prices. They went up.

They were creeping up in the fall, but they had a major rise in Q1, so it was during one quarter. It's not so strange that we now have one quarter of this positive timing effect, because after that they have leveled out.

With this up to three months lag then in the COGS, that should start to level out into Q3, since that we are now working with raw material in the powder business that have been bought at these elevated levels as well. When you come to the cutting tools on the nine-month lag, this is part of this with the timing of price increases in cutting tools.

In powder, it's an automatic pricing, which means we get this windfall. In cutting tools, we are matching, or we're trying to match the best we can, the price increases with the pace at which it flows through our COGS.

When we estimate the price increase we need to do in three months, we are trying to do them at the level of, so we match the COGS that will flow out at that point in time to have a neutral effect on the margin in cutting tools. This is, of course, we want to be fair to our customers and also for competitive reasons.

We don't want to overdo this. We're just trying to maintain our margin in cutting tools despite this high raw material cost.

If you could change prices in real time, there would be no effect. Now we have a three-month notification period and so on.

It creates a little bit of dynamic, which means right now we're a little bit behind. We will eventually catch up in the fall, then it will be neutral.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

On top of this three-month notification time, we also need some internal planning and preparation before that. Our decision point is even earlier than the three-month notice period.

Cecilia Felton

Sebastian Kuenne

Understood. Thank you.

I have another question now for mining aftermarket volume. You saw a 17% increase, I would assume that this also is affected by tungsten pricing.

Mining is buying the components probably from your powder business in machining, and machining will book all the gains for this. There's still this inflationary pressure now that you have in the aftermarket and mining.

Can you maybe give us an indication of how much in this aftermarket growth is pricing? How much is volume, and how much is just the pass-through of higher raw material costs?

For us to understand what the volume increase is.

Sebastian Kuenne

Stefan Widing

Yeah. You are right, of course, that on the rock tools side, the drill bits contain tungsten and there are price increases coming through there as well.

Rock tools, though, in the total aftermarket business, it's sizable, but it's a definite minority. Parts and services is by far the biggest.

Now you have ground support and digital mining in there as well. On the rock tools, the tungsten portion of the raw material, it's mainly steel.

The tungsten portion of the raw material means that it's not the same effect as you will have in a cutting tool. Another effect here is that rock tools, we are not selling through distribution, et cetera.

Its mining contract is a little bit more slow-moving in pricing as well. We have not broken out that effect in aftermarket, and I would say in this quarter, it's immaterial.

It is something maybe to consider going forward, but it's not something I would call out at all this quarter.

Stefan Widing

Sebastian Kuenne

Understood. Thank you very much.

Sebastian Kuenne

Cecilia Felton

Thank you.

Cecilia Felton

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Operator

Max Yates

Hi. Just two questions from me.

The first one is just around M&A, and you obviously completed the filtration acquisition. I'm just wondering how broad are you prepared to go as you move out of crushers?

You've obviously added filtration and dewatering. There's other areas like high pressure grinding rolls, slurry pumps.

I'm just curious, when you think strategically about your rock processing business, how do you think it looks in three years' time in terms of the depth and breadth of your product offering?

Max Yates

Stefan Widing

Thank you. It's a good question.

We have been not so specific around this, what we have said is we want to grow in attractive niches. What we mean by that is product categories where there is a high share of aftermarket service, meaning typically good margins and resilient business.

It's also where we think we can add something in terms of competence and so on. If we are in the comminution circuit, meaning close to the crushers.

You asked about M&A, there are also other ways of going into markets there with organic developments and so on. I think we will, three years from now, be a little bit broader than we are now.

I do think we took a big step forward with filtration, and we'll probably, let's say, consolidate that for a while. Schenck was three years ago.

We know it took a few years to get fully into that part of the market, establish, start to scale it, get synergies. It will take some time also with filtration and dewatering.

I don't want to be more specific than that. We will definitely try to broaden it a little bit more.

It will be also based on what opportunities arise and what kind of organic investments we are ready to make. You shouldn't expect something like this every year.

We want to build it slowly but steadily, and we're in it for the long term. I think mining will be a good business 30 years from now as well.

We're not in a hurry, but the direction is clear where we want to go.

Stefan Widing

Max Yates

Okay, maybe a quick follow-up just on the large order pipeline. You've obviously had a much better quarter than your nearest competitor in terms of large orders.

I guess I just wanted to think through, we've seen orders oscillating anywhere between one to slightly above SEK 2 billion. I'm not going to try and pin you to a quarter, but when we think about the second half, does the pipeline look like that kind of level can be sustained, or was this really a quarter where everything came together, both in terms of projects being sized, but maybe you getting a foot ahead of your competitor in lots of those bookings?

Max Yates

Stefan Widing

I think major orders above SEK 2 billion in a quarter is fairly rare. That's also why we were quite happy that we matched last year's level again.

I would be stretching myself if I would say that that's some kind of new normal. I will also say we do see a very active market out there.

There's lots of projects, a lot of business to be won. SEK 2 billion is unusually high, but there is no reason for why it shouldn't be major orders also in the upcoming quarters.

Let's put it like that.

Stefan Widing

Max Yates

Okay. Clear.

Thank you.

Max Yates

Operator

We now have a question from the line of James Moore from Rothschild & Co Redburn. Please go ahead.

Operator

James Moore

Yes. Hi, everybody.

Thanks for the time. I've got a few on the same topic, forgive me.

Thanks for the powder share, 19%. Any chance you could call out the previous five quarters?

I'm assuming six, eight, nine, 12, it would be helpful just to see the sequencing. That's the first question.

Maybe we go one at a time.

James Moore

Cecilia Felton

We haven't split it out. What we've said is that for 2025, the powder business was high single digit share of machining.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

You're just missing Q1 then.

Stefan Widing

James Moore

How does my 12 sound?

James Moore

Stefan Widing

Let us come back on that to see if we should provide that. We haven't discussed that.

I don't think we thought about that. We will come back to see if that's something we should, in that case, share in some way that everyone gets the information.

Stefan Widing

James Moore

Thank you.

James Moore

Stefan Widing

No problem.

Stefan Widing

James Moore

On the machining margin, 25%, excluding the 380 basis points, or sustainable is a funny word. I think it still includes a premium powder margin.

Would it be possible to say what the increase in the pure cutting tool margin was year-on-year? I think you said it was down 100 basis points in the first quarter.

Now it's up. Is it up enough to get to 25%?

I assume it isn't up 300-400 basis points from, say, 21%-25%. I assume it's something more modest than that.

Any scaling on the cutting tool margin would be great.

James Moore

Cecilia Felton

We're not giving really any specifics. Cutting tools did improve the margin year-over-year, but I would say a larger share of the margin improvement comes from the powder business.

I think that's as specific as we can be.

Cecilia Felton

James Moore

Okay, thanks. I see the tungsten price has rolled down a bit, but the European APT price is flat.

Is there any way you could help us with what we should use as a regional global basket on APT, mix-wise?

James Moore

Stefan Widing

I think you should use the Rotterdam prices, because when we are talking about these dynamics in our powder business and so on, China is completely separate also for us. It's a completely separate supply chain and so on.

Our powder business is the non-Chinese part, and that is driven by the Rotterdam prices and also the scrap notations.

Stefan Widing

James Moore

Thanks. That's really helpful.

Just lastly, on the SEK 550 million and the SEK 200 million. Any chance you could give the two gross impacts, powder versus cutting tools?

I still don't really understand whether they're made up of two very disparate numbers.

James Moore

Cecilia Felton

No, sorry. We're not giving the split between the two.

Just a net number, I'm afraid.

Cecilia Felton

James Moore

It's a net of a bigger powder positive and a negative cutting tool impact in the quarter?

James Moore

Cecilia Felton

Yes. That I said before.

That's true.

Cecilia Felton

James Moore

You couldn't say whether one is bigger than the other in magnitude without sizing it?

James Moore

Cecilia Felton

No, sorry. We're not giving more specifics than that, I'm afraid.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

It's just a temporary effect anyway. You know it would be in Q3.

Stefan Widing

James Moore

Absolutely, we've all got to model it, so we need to know.

James Moore

Stefan Widing

Yeah, sorry.

Stefan Widing

James Moore

Okay, thanks.

James Moore

Cecilia Felton

Thank you.

Cecilia Felton

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Vladimir Sergievskiy from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Operator

Vladimir Sergievskiy

Yes, hello. Thanks very much for taking my two questions.

They will both be on mining. Number one would be on new equipment orders, but the base orders and not large orders.

If I try to estimate those, I end up with those base new equipment orders declining sequentially, potentially quite materially. This is obviously a very high level in Q1.

Question is, was it really the case that they declined sequentially? If that was the case, what was the reason for that?

Vladimir Sergievskiy

Stefan Widing

Yeah, I think it is a little bit of a dynamic, where probably in Q1, there were some customers placing more orders to secure the supply during the year, now it's more normalized. I don't have a specific number on that or anything like that.

It's a fairly normal seasonal pattern that we have a more positive book to build in Q1. Maybe it was more, I haven't looked at that actually sequentially versus prior years.

Maybe it was a little bit more emphasized this year, I don't know. That is fairly normal pattern.

Stefan Widing

Vladimir Sergievskiy

Understood. That's super helpful.

Then I wanted to come back to the 17% aftermarket growth. I know, Stefan, you explained the drivers behind that.

In any case, it's an exceptional number really, within any historical context. Was there any material pricing contribution to the 17%?

Then if it wasn't a material pricing contribution, how surprised were you yourselves to see this pop?

Vladimir Sergievskiy

Cecilia Felton

The short answer, no.

Cecilia Felton

Stefan Widing

There is no material pricing in that. It's normal pricing, I would say.

Nothing that is an extra material driver. How surprised were we?

Well, a little bit. Let's put it like that.

We are always impressed, especially when parts and services come in with these growth numbers because they have been growing for a long time now at very high levels. We understand, we can see the underlying drivers, of course, you're always happy to see things coming in a little bit on the upside.

Stefan Widing

Cecilia Felton

All right. We need to wrap up.

It's actually a busy reporting day today, so it was pleasing to see that we went full hour. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call IR.

We thank you for calling in and wish you a great summer.