Greetings and welcome to this presentation of ABB's second quarter results. You will hear from our CEO, Morten Wierod, and our CFO, Christian Nilsson, and they will talk through results as per usual tradition.

After this, we will run through the Q&A session. I'm Ann-Sofie Nordh, Head of Investor Relations.

With that, I will just simply hand over to you, Morten, for the presentation.

Thanks, Ann-Sofie. Let's talk through the building blocks that resulted in another record quarter for both orders and revenues, good earnings growth, a solid margin improvement, and good cash flow.

In total, things progressed more or less as planned. We delivered on our guidance, I'm pleased with the results.

I want to start with M&A. You have heard me talk about the teams being active on a good target pipeline.

Now, we see these efforts result in three recently announced acquisitions, which combined would add approximately 3.5% to our 2025 revenues. This includes two smaller deals, one being in the Italian company Spezialtrafo, who is specialized in medium voltage transformers.

I want to make it clear that we're not going back into the general power transformer business. No, these are custom engineered components aimed at industrial and energy applications.

It fits well in the Motion High Power division as they can integrate these transformers with our large motors and drives into fully optimized powertrain solutions. The other small deal is in the Marine and Ports division in the business area Automation.

Their acquisition of the marine automation specialist Haglund is a nice complement to our existing offering. Haglund's integrated automation system handles automation, monitoring, and control tasks onboard of ships.

By combining data from engines, power generators, and cargo systems, it helps improve safety, energy efficiency, and overall operational performance. This will further strengthen our already leading position in marine.

This morning, we also announced a larger deal, namely our offer to acquire Rotork. We have followed Rotork from a distance for a long while, impressed by their technology.

They are a leading manufacturer of actuators and would expand our automation offering. Importantly, timing is good as ABB is in good shape.

We have improved governance and performance of our own company. We are ready to welcome Rotork into ABB.

This is an important step to expand the ABB automation offering. It broadens our scope in what we call the sense-control-act automation loop.

We can take these solutions into our extensive market reach and build on our digital and technology capabilities. We see a strong strategic fit between Rotork and the ABB purpose and our leading position in the electrification and automation.

This deal will bring together two businesses with highly complementary technology portfolios and similar customer relationships, geographic footprints, and strong installed bases. Beyond the strategic fit, we see Rotork's culture and operating philosophy similar to ours.

Last year, they generated revenues of £777 million and a high adjusted operating margin of 24.6%. Absorbing this into the ABB result for 2025, our revenues would increase by about 3% and operational EBITA margin would improve by about 20 basis points.

This acquisition would be accretive to our earnings per share in year two, as the first year is burdened by certain acquisition-related costs. We have agreed on a price of 503 British pence per Rotork share.

In US dollar terms, this comes to about $5.5 billion, or in 2025 multiple terms, an EV to sales of about 5.3 and EV to EBITDA of about 19.5. This represents a discount in the region of 5% to 25% versus our own multiples.

Accounting for synergies, the EV to EBITDA multiple reduces in the mid-teens range. From a timing perspective, we expect the transaction to close in the first half of 2027, post Rotork shareholder vote and customary regulatory approvals.

It is our strong view that Rotork joining ABB adds long-term value across the stakeholder groups. The Rotork board is aligned on the strategic fit, and it is supportive and recommends the offer.

What do we actually mean when we talk about the sense-control-act automation loop? I would say that automation is about closing feedback control loops.

You are sensing a condition, you take algorithmic decisions in controllers, which triggers an act in, for example, a motor and drive running a fan, pump, or compressor. First, there is sensing.

The sensors feed process signals into the automation system. These are signals of pressure, temperature, flow, or level, or the chemical composition of gases and liquids.

The automation system controls, monitors, and optimizes the continuous production processes. This can be in a pulp and paper plant or on an oil platform.

The system uses the sensor signals to infer a process state, to analyze deviations, and to calculate corrective actions. This takes us to the act phase.

The DCS signals the actuators, which triggers, for example, a valve to optimize how much it is open in order to adjust the pressure or flow of liquid or gas. Our position within the automation loop has this far been biased towards the DCS and sensing.

Rotork is a leading independent manufacturer of actuators, with a particular strong position in electric actuators. By adding this to our portfolio, we would improve our offering into the act phase and further strengthen our competitive position.

As part of the automation extended platform, it will enhance our ability to help our customers through increasingly digital, connected, and autonomous solutions across energy and process industries. There are of course different types of actuators, and Rotork is leading player across electric, pneumatics, and hydraulic actuation.

Electric actuators represent more than half of Rotork's sales. From a customer perspective, this come with the benefit of consuming energy only when performing work.

This reduces operational cost and improves energy efficiency. They also provide highly accurate positioning and motion control.

This is essential for applications requiring multiple points of positioning or precise adjustments. Rotork will be a really strong match, extending our current offering.

In the combined setup, we are better balanced in the sense-control automation loop. As I mentioned earlier, we have followed Rotork for a long time.

They have many qualities as the plan is that they will operate as a separate division within the Automation business area, adding about 12% to revenues. By running them as a separate division, we would retain accountability and operational focus, very much in line with the ABB Way operating model.

Automation products is a profitable business, our mix improves. In the combined setup, the business area operational EBITA margin would have been 15.2%, 120 basis points higher than reported 2025 actuals.

We are very hopeful about what we and Rotork can jointly accomplish. Together, we will be a strong partner to customers as we move towards increasingly digital, connected, and autonomous solutions across energy and process industries.

Now let's turn back to Q2, and we delivered new record levels for both orders and revenues. In the order chart, you see that this is the first time we generated about $12 billion in one quarter.

The very strong comparable increase of 28% is driven by a broad and good activity across most of our customer segments. Notably, the Automation business area even tempered overall order growth for the group.

Importantly, their market environment remains strong, their order decline is linked to the very tough comparable. Christian will talk more about this shortly.

Speaking of strong markets, we had surging order growth of 58% in Electrification and a very strong 20% in Motion. In total, the elevator pitch would be that all of our three business areas continue to see a robust overall market situation, and we don't see a pattern of pre-buys, but demand is rather underpinned by sustained customer investments across the secular megatrends of energy expansion, energy efficiency, and energy resilience, areas where ABB's portfolio is very well positioned to deliver.

Looking closer at the different customer segments, data center stands out with a triple-digit order increase. We had a challenging comparable in the utility segment, but the market is strong, with investments in grid build-out, stability, and reliability.

We also see good demand for upgrades on electrical infrastructure in, for example, tunnels and airports. Linked to transport, marine and rail continued to be strong areas.

In the building segment, orders were up in the commercial area, including for HVAC. In the quarter, we got yet another proof point of what we can accomplish with the combined strength of our business areas, the power of ABB.

Under the extended partnership with VoltaGrid, Motion and Automation will supply synchronous condensers with the associated prefabricated e-house units. These are systems that act as critical stabilization assets, enabling the voltage stability required by next-generation AI chips.

Done by the joint team. As I mentioned, revenues were the highest on record at $9.5 billion.

You can see in the chart that revenues tend to be sequentially up in the second quarter, but this year, the uptake was larger than usual, in line with our guidance. Revenues increased in both the project and short-cycle businesses, and higher volumes was the biggest contributor to the strong comparable growth of 12%.

This includes a good pricing contribution of close to 2%, with the teams balancing customer relationships and defending our own profitability. As a net total, we delivered a positive book-to-bill of 1.27, and it was positive in all three business areas.

The backlog is up at a record level of $30 billion, up 28% on a comparable basis. In my view, we performed very well in a strong market.

Looking at the different geographies, orders were up by double digits in all three regions. The Americas continued to be the strongest growth driver, and orders increased by 52% like-for-like.

Looking specifically at the US, orders were up by as much as 62%. This high number includes some large bookings, but also base orders were very strong and improved by about 30%.

Europe was up by 12%. Here, we saw a decline in the largest market, Germany, but this was more than offset by order improvements in several of the other large countries.

Asia, Middle East, Africa improved by 12%, with China being up 10%. Let's turn to earnings, which reflects both favorable market conditions and a strong execution.

We converted the 12% comparable revenue growth to a 20% increase in operational EBITA to $1.9 billion. This reflects a margin improvement of 90 basis points to 20.2%.

Similar to the prior quarter, we had pressure on gross margin. It dropped by 50 basis points from last year, impacted mainly by unrealized derivatives on FX and commodities.

We also still have a bit of a gap on the price-cost balance. That said, we did achieve a gross margin of 40%, which admittedly is a good level.

The impact from the unrealized derivatives feeds through to income from operations or EBIT. We had about $130 million of special non-operational items, partially offsetting a strong business performance.

In total, we improved income from operation as well as earnings per share by 8%. With that, I hand over to you, Christian.

Thanks, Morten. Let's take a look at what happened in different business areas.

As usual, we start with Electrification, which delivered new record highs across virtually all the headline numbers. Comparable orders were up by as much as 58%, and the absolute intake advanced from an already strong trajectory and for the first time hit the plus $7 billion mark.

This is underpinned by strong, broad-based sentiment across major customer segments. I actually noted that this was the sixth consecutive quarters with a positive book-to-bill in Electrification.

In Q2, it was 1.39, and the order backlog increased by 59% to $13.7 billion. Looking at the different segments, data center stood out again with a triple-digit order growth.

Still, we see a solid project pipeline with data centers requiring increasingly more electrification content. The market is clearly very supportive, and we are performing well in this strong market.

There are very good developments also in the other markets. If we exclude the data center segment, Electrification's orders still increased by double digits.

One segment to highlight is land-based infrastructure. This is driven by modernizing electrical infrastructure for tunnels, roads, or rail.

Demand in the building segment also improved, driven by commercial activity. The utility segment is another strong market, although in this particular quarter, the order growth was limited due to last year's high comparable.

Now turning to revenues, which amounted to $5.2 billion on a comparable growth of 19%. This was driven by good progress in both the short-cycle and project business.

Higher volumes was clearly the main driver, but the team did well also on price management, which added about 2%. It was encouraging to see the sequential acceleration in pricing in the second quarter.

We still have a bit of a gap in price versus input cost to cover in gross margin, and here we expect to be at least neutral for the full year. In the second quarter, this gap was more than compensated for by efficiency improvements and stringent SG&A control.

As a net total, the operational EBITA was up by 26% to $1.3 billion. This reflects a margin of 24.9%, yet another record high from the Electrification team.

Looking at the third quarter, we expect comparable revenue growth to be at least similar to what we saw in Q2, and operational EBITA margin should improve from the second quarter levels of 24.9%. Now, let's turn to Motion.

Contrary to the usual seasonal trend, orders actually increased sequentially and reached $2.6 billion. This reflects a comparable growth of 20% from last year, driven by improvements in both short-cycle and project businesses.

As Morten mentioned earlier, we see a good demand for our grid stabilization technologies with our industry-leading synchronous condensers. Other positive segments were rail, marine, and mining.

On the more short-cycle side, there was strength in HVAC for commercial buildings as well as in data centers cooling. Similar to recent quarters, the softer areas are the process-related segments like chemicals and pulp and paper.

Turning now to revenues of $2.2 billion, with a comparable revenue growth of 4%, more or less equally driven by volume and price, with an additional percentage of growth derived from portfolio changes. As you mention coming into the quarter, profitability was under pressure.

Operational EBITA margin dropped by 130 basis points to 18.5%, and there are multiple factors to consider. First, the positive impact by operational leverage on comparable revenue growth.

This was, however, more than offset by Gamesa Electric acquisition operating at a loss and diluted margin by around 70 basis points year-on-year. This is similar to what we saw in Q1, and we expect it to be dilutive for the remainder of this year.

Additionally, we still have some operational inefficiencies in our High Power division. This should, however, be resolved during the second half of the year.

Lastly, there were some timing impacts in production volumes in the Traction division, which had an adverse impact on profitability. The high-level view for Motion can be summarized as good orders in a solid market, but some challenges on profitability, which partially will linger throughout the year.

Looking at the third quarter, we expect comparable revenue growth in the mid to high single-digit range year-on-year, and operational EBITA margin should be similar to the second quarter. Now let's turn to Automation, where orders remained sequentially stable on the level of $2.5 billion.

These orders actually make it one of their strongest quarters, but still recorded a year-on-year decline of 14%. This is due to last year's high comparable, which includes a very large single booking of $600 million.

You can see it in the charts on the left-hand side. Let's take a look at the order drivers.

Demand for marine, as well as port automation electrification, continues to be strong. Overall, our performance in oil and gas remained solid, with any disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict contained to the local market.

Similar to what we see in Motion, the softer demand is noted in the process-related industries of pulp and paper and chemicals. We still see a muted capex environment in the mining segment.

Revenues came through slightly better than expected, with comparable growth of 7%. Overall, we generated revenues of $2.2 billion, but it came with a somewhat of an adverse mix.

The higher share of revenues from the project and system integration business had a slight negative impact on gross margin, but still, the team improved operational EBITA margin by 120 basis points to 15.4%, supported by stringent cost control, not least in SG&A. I should also mention that in the quarter, we had about 70 basis points of margin support from a one-timer.

This stems from a provision release linked to a project settlement. Overall, another solid delivery from the Automation team.

Now looking at the third quarter, we expect comparable revenues to improve in the mid-single-digit range, and operational EBITA margin should improve year-on-year. Cash was another solid point in our results.

As noticeable in the chart, we didn't have the usual pattern of sequentially higher free cash flows. As you may recall, the first quarter was boosted by about $425 million from a real estate sale.

On a year-on-year basis, we improved slightly to $881 million. This was backed by a good operational earnings increase, which offset the impact from higher capex spend in continuing operations, as well as a lower cash flow in discontinued operations.

All in all, it was a good cash quarter, and we are well on track to improve our free cash flows from last year's strong level of $4.6 billion. With that, I hand it back to you, Morten.

Thanks, Christian. Let's finish off with the outlook.

As evident in our Q2 results, we play in strong markets. Order backlog is rising, and the short-cycle business is clearly supportive.

We raise our growth guidance for the year to a low double-digit to low teens increase in comparable revenues. This adds confidence to our current margin outlook, which is to improve from last year, even when excluding the real estate gain in the first quarter of 2026.

For the third quarter, we expect a low to mid-teens growth in comparable revenues year-on-year, and the operational EBITA margin should show sequential improvement from the second quarter. Now, Ann-Sofie, let's open up for questions.

Yes, very good. Just as a quick reminder for those of you who are dialed in on the phone, please press *14 to register to ask a question.

Also, remember to mute the webcast as your line is opened. Also, again, we kindly ask you to limit yourself to one question.

This is so we can allow for as many as possible to be heard. You can also put your questions through the online tool in the webcast, and I will then voice them over from here.

With that, let's take the first question, and it comes from Martin Wilkie at Citi. Martin, your line should be open.

Good morning. Thank you for taking the question.

The question is on Electrification orders. Obviously, a phenomenally strong quarter, even after a couple of very strong quarters beforehand.

You said there's no pre-buy, but I guess what everyone's trying to work out is whether lead times are expanding and this is reflecting deliveries and build-out further out, into 2028 and beyond, or whether this is sort of a near-term driver that's going to get put into the ground in 2027. Just understanding a little bit more about how you see the sort of duration of the backlog that you're building, and what it means for sort of demand strength for the overall industry.

Is this lead time related, or is this really true underlying strength in higher and higher build-outs for your customers?

No, I can take that. We see the strong growth here kind of in all sectors, and the lead times are the same or similar to what they have been before.

We don't see any pre-buys. We don't see really any change from a lead time perspective.

It's more that we're getting more capacity online, that means also we can take more orders on our side, and you see that also reflected in our increased revenue guidance both for the year or for the quarter now and the year. That's really the driving factor behind it.

Just high activity level and good demand in the market.

Great, thank you.

Thanks, Martin. Then Magnus from Nordea.

Are you with us, Magnus?

Hi, Morten, Christian, Ann-Sofie. Magnus from Nordea.

Staying on the same topic, I think Christian talked about double-digit growth ex-data centers on order intake in Q2. I think we were slightly higher than that, maybe teens or so in Q1.

Could you frame it a little bit if the order growth ex-data centers moderated in the quarter

or not?

No, the double-digit growth outside data center is definitely here in Q2, and it's a similar pattern that we saw in Q1, let's say the continuation of that good performance both in Q1 and now as we see it in Q2 outside data centers.

Mhm.

No moderation?

I could add to that also. In Electrification specifically in this quarter, we had a very high comp in the utility segment, which didn't support order growth for that reason.

Otherwise, all good.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Then

we have a question here from the online tool. It comes from Benjamin Heelan.

"Could you provide some color on pricing trends across Electrification and Automation? Are there differences by geography?"

Yep. No, we see for this quarter about 2% increase in price, up from the Q1.

That's also what we talked about after the first quarter. We also said that we will, because we need some time to get that full compensation of the cost increases we saw earlier in the year.

There is a bit of a lag, and that's what we are executing on, and according to that plan. That is still valid, as we said earlier, that it will be more than compensated on cost by the end of the year.

There, of course, there are differences here in the short cycle versus the long cycle. The long-cycle business, you can also do more of hedging when it comes to material and long and fixed contract.

Of course, the short cycle, you cannot do that. There is where you need to be quicker when it comes to be more dynamic in pricing.

We see that more, as I say, on the short-cycle business where you need to do faster updates. Then on geographies, of course, the strongest, let's say, where we have more of inflation is in the Americas, where we see also the strongest growth.

There is where you have more price effect than, for instance, what we see in China. Also, the price decline that we saw earlier at least a year back in China, that has reversed.

That is also what gives a positive impact on pricing when we're talking about the average. Of course, that difference is still there between the higher price increase markets, talking US versus China, but the deltas has now been lifted on both sides.

Maybe Europe we can add, and kind of in the middle between the two, I guess, is fair to say.

Yep.

Thank you. Then we move to the conference call and we take the question from Andre at UBS.

Please.

Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question.

Can we just talk about Rotork acquisition, and could you comment on what kind of drove the decision to pull the trigger at this stage rather than any sort of point of time in, I think, the last 10 years that we've talked about it on and off? Just one specific angle on that: in terms of customer fit, from what I understand, Rotork is obviously very petrochemical, oil and gas exposed, but your DCS, most natural areas of strength are rather in mining and pulp and paper, water, wastewater, rather than the hydrocarbons.

Could you talk about how you can synergize these two across the time?

Yep. No, we looked at Rotork for quite some time and been impressed about the performance.

What we really like is the leadership in technology and on market leadership. That are two aspects that we like, and it's a good fit with the Electrification and Automation focus from ABB, and also it's very similar to Rotork.

If you look at end user and end customer exposure, you also see a very good overlap. It adds 40% of the business of Rotork is oil and gas.

That would add, if you're looking at an ABB overall, it's add 0.5% more oil and gas exposure to our existing ABB business. We see rather this complementing, being able to connect the sensing and the control through our distributed control system, our leadership there, and then the actuators, which really the act part coming from the automation system.

Combining these two, we believe is a great fit for end customers and end users. It gives a better service expansion opportunities also for Rotork when they have a wider ABB network to help.

That is where we believe there is good both revenue and cost synergies between us to be able to create that value that we are confident that we will have getting Rotork into ABB. We are looking forward to that new opportunity.

I'm going to

Why now? Sorry.

All right.

Sorry?

The beginning of the question: why now? Oh.

I think here, maybe more the timing is from an ABB side. We are running as a strong-performing company.

We have a good governance model in our ABB Way is well established, and we believe it's the right time also to take in some bigger assets or bigger parts into the company. This will benefit our Automation business.

It will benefit the overall ABB business. We believe now is a good time.

Thank you.

I'm going to tie on to that with a question on Rotork from the online tool from Elfeen, who says, "What assumption do you have on the mid-term revenue growth for Rotork?"

I will not comment on the outlook. I think that is something that they have to do as they are still a separate company, I will leave that with them.

I'm sure there are opportunities to ask that question also.

Good moves. We'll take another call from the conference call line.

We open up for Will Mackie at Kepler, please.

Thank you very much. I wanted to come back to the data center and market segment, and touch on I'm sure a subject on everyone's mind, which is the continuity of order intake that you've achieved this year.

You talk about a positive price level and a positive pipeline going ahead. Could you comment broadly on how you see that pipeline maturing into orders in Q3 and Q4, and do you see the current levels of demand that you've just booked sustainable going into the next couple of quarters?

Thank you.

Thanks. We have had seen a very strong comparable growth, of course, coming into these quarters for the Electrification business, reaching the first time about 5 in Q4, first time about 6 in Q1, and now the first time about $7 billion.

Continue always making records in business, I haven't seen that happening kind of that always happen. We should kind of be a bit also aware, of course, of that one.

In general, we see a very strong pipeline also when we're talking about our large customers in this field. The capital allocation and the investment plans are clearly there.

It's our ability, of course, we don't take orders that we cannot commit to the right execution date, and that's why, but we have a strong and a positive outlook also when we look at the future for the data center sector. I think we should also recognize there will be kind of a variation in the order intake.

You may remember everyone after Q1 last year where we had kind of less of bookings of large order in that quarter, then now we had some very good quarters behind us. In general, we're looking at a strong demand and also a good outlook for the data centers, but I cannot promise you that we will continue to make that kind of records that we've done every quarter now.

You will see some variation in the order intake, but the longer-term outlook is very strong.

Thank you.

Thanks. Then we have next in line, Max from Morgan Stanley.

Hi. Good morning.

Just my question is just around the electrification revenues and your capacity. If orders are running at this sort of 6.5 to $7 billion level and we end up, let's say at $27 billion of orders plus, I'm just trying to understand kind of how quickly that can convert into revenues, and kind of how much capacity you have, because, I guess if I look at your sort of sales this year, they're going to be, say, $21 billion, and if we think about kind of a lot of this capacity, or a lot of these orders being for delivery in '27, my interpretation would be that there'd be no reason that the growth should slow down, we should be landing at somewhere around $25 billion.

I guess I'm just trying to understand how quickly and how high can revenues get up to next year, and can we see kind of 25, $26 billion? Is that realistic with the capacity that you have?

Thank you.

You're quite early here, Max, when it comes to talking about '27 already. We will get there in January with more guidance for the '27.

What I can

You have the backlog. You're kind of locked in for a lot of it, I guess, yeah.

It's

true, and what we will see is more kind of also the short-cycle business, the book-to-bill is where we will see how the total turns out. What I can talk about is kind of the capacity build-out.

That we have, over time, invested and increased our capex now for many years. It's investments in United States, investments in China, in India.

We also announced in this quarter $200 million expansion and additional capex into Europe, because we talk now a lot about United States and the data center build-out, but as Christian also referred to, we're seeing a strong demand. Also, we were up 12% in Europe in this quarter, 12% in Asia, Middle East, Africa.

If you're looking at we are adding capacity to be able to deal with the higher order backlog that we now have in place. Of course, as I said earlier, we do not take orders where we are fully committed that we can deliver on time.

That is a very important part, the lessons learned from the past, and that's one of the things that I think is also helping us winning share, seeing as one of the most reliable partners in this space. The order intake, what we can show today is based on committed capacity that we have in place or are being built.

Why we increased the guidance is we see that some of the capacity there that is now coming online based on previous years' investments is giving the expected benefits, the expected increased capacity. This is a continuous job now on expanding more or less every, especially in Electrification, every unit that we have with more square meter, more robotics, more automation, and more people online, which needs to be trained and we are in a good journey there to be able to execute on this and get that order backlog into revenues.

Maybe just one clarify. Do you have any orders in your backlog that extend into '28 already, or is all of this now still for '27?

No, we have also for '28, especially if you talk about Automation business. There you will see their pipeline, for instance, in the cruise segment, much longer.

In

In Electrification, sorry. In Electrification.

There are also in Electrification. They are also part of their portfolio goes also into this like in cruise ships, into mining, and also some of the data centers.

This is not all for '27, it is also into some in '28. That's kind of from all parts of the business.

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I'll take one question here from the online tool, which is linked to Electrification orders, but not on a year-on-year perspective, but rather sequentially.

"Were there sequential improvements across all end markets or was this focus largely in data centers?" The question comes from Benjamin.

As you say, what we looked at now is the year-over-year. If you look at the sequential development there, the biggest driver was clearly the data center industry.

Again, strong performance on the utility sector there. I think we have more of a strong also increase in this war because there versus Q1, while from last year there it was more flat.

You're starting to get more complex now with the sequential and the last year, we need to get all these numbers placed. Sequentially, the main driver for this quarter is in data center if you look at the big picture for Electrification.

Yep. Then we open up the line for James Moore at Rothschild.

Good morning, everyone, and my questions on EL and mix. Could you comment on the share of 2Q orders of $7.2 billion and 2Q sales of $5.2 billion from data centers as a percentage?

Within the data center orders, can you comment on customer and product mix? On customer, was the co-lo orders faster than the near-clouds or hyperscaler or the other way around?

On product, is it that you're seeing a much higher growth in medium voltage say than low-voltage UPS and PDU, or a different view of that? Just to help understand the composition.

When you talk about the product mix, There's nothing that stands out. It's more kind of you do most of the project we do, we do medium voltage and low voltage switchgear.

Then there are sometimes we do, on the UPS side is a bit there is a difference. There we are much stronger on the medium voltage side.

There is no real shift between them there. What we have gained solid traction and market share is in the medium voltage UPS.

I think that is a stronghold that we see more customer who likes that technology and that we have booked more. If you look at the percentage for the quarter, I'm looking at Christian.

On this order percentage split, of course, with the triple-digit growth in data centers, it's fair to say that data center is growing at a faster pace, which mathematically makes the share bigger for Electrification in that space.

There is no change also in our kind of the mix between hyperscalers

and

co-location. That is also the same.

It's more that it's a higher activity level where it's a similar customer base, it's a similar or the same kind of mix of products. There is no kind of stand out.

It's just the whole segment is running faster, and that goes also to geographies. Kind of if you look at the big picture, the United States still driving it, but we also made significant wins in the data center segment both in Europe and also in Asia this quarter.

Okay.

Thanks very much.

Thanks, James. Then we have next in line Jonathan at BNP Paribas.

Hi, thanks for fitting me in. Maybe just on the whole M&A.

Trying to understand the synergies. Do you have an idea what the bill of materials for an average Rotork actuator was?

Particularly interested really in how much of those materials, those subcomponents, ABB will be able to make now. Do they buy much from you to begin with?

Is there a big cost synergy, and I'm thinking about motors, controllers, things like that? Then how much further will we take this?

Do you have any interest in moving a layer even lower into valves, or is actuation as deep as you're willing to go? Then just finally also on M&A, more maybe on the exit side.

I see e-mobility losses now are only $18 million. Are we still on track to say break even by the end of the year, and if we get there, does that open up the possibility of an exit in 2027?

Thank you.

Yep. No, thanks, Jonathan.

On the synergy side, there is the synergy is really on on the on the revenue side majority where where we can combine our offering and coming up, as you say, a stronger end user preference and and be able to to drive the growth here as a combined offering, but also especially in the field of service with the very wide service network of ABB being present literally everywhere through ourselves or with service partner, I think opens quite a lot of new service opportunities for for that offering. Of course, there are in the field also on procurement when we're talking about component level.

It's more as always you will look at where what's the best buy between the two and how you can leverage that bigger volume as part of ABB. That would also, as always, be part of it.

That's kind of how I will we will always look at to say how we can drive efficiency and competitiveness by also looking at in the field of procurement and and manufacturing in all aspects of it. On the e-mobility side, we see, as you said, a much less losses in the Q2 compared to Q1.

We are having a plan that gets us to that break even by end of the year if the revenue plan as forecasted now can be met. We have we are we have that kind of line of sight to to get there, and that was always the the plan.

We are getting there, we will move on. That is more of a 20 2027 event because as I always said, getting the upgraded product portfolio, which is done, getting the business to a break-even or profitable level is which is ongoing, and then we will take the the final step when we are ready to that also.

That's something we will come back to in in '27.

Maybe just clarify, the break-even would be at the end of a year for the individual quarter, and then we have, as we said, maybe estimating around $50 million of losses for the year. Just to

Thank you. Then we take the next question from Kadri at SB1 Markets.

Yes, thank you. Kadri at SB1 Market.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Not surprisingly, I want to go back to Electrification and the data center order intake and the rate of growth, 100% plus for the first half of the year. Can you give us some indication of how much of that is volume, the underlying volume for the whole segment, how much of that is market share growth given that you have added capacity, and how much of that growth is price?

If you can just rank those and give some indications of ballpark between those three drivers, that would be very helpful.

Yep. The the price, to start there, as I say, is in line what we said earlier, is about 2% from that is for the overall.

Some and where it's not like it's one segment that is really sticking out. It's that so you can use that same part of a couple of percent for or 2% for on price.

When we're looking at the the the the mix, as I said earlier, between geographies, we see good momentum both in Americas in, but also Europe and Asia on that side. From from the and also the mix between customers, there is no real change there, it's just higher activity level in in the segment.

That's and I can just to also say this we when we're working with our the large partners that we have and our customers, to say the outlook when it comes to to new project is strong, and you all see some of the capital commitments that's being made. Of course we are we believe that we are in a strong future position to win those projects.

We have you look back, we have gained share, market share in this segment at least from the first quarter. I believe that trend will continue in also in this quarter.

I guess we need to see kind of the full reporting before we can make that claim, but we are on a on a track where the closeness to customers, the offering we have has been and has been a winning combination, and of course that is to and that's what our ambition is to keep on that journey and and winning share in a in a good market.

Help me understand why price is such a modest driver, because it seems to be that the costs related to data center build-out are going up quite significantly in pretty much everything. Why is not your gear going up in price more?

When I talk about the 2% increase, as you said earlier, there are differences between regions, between China being lower than compared to United States. You also have to remember that many of the hyperscalers are very large customers, and they have also leverage in a price negotiation.

We believe with the pricing and how we have been running it, we have been able to kind of protect margin, but also winning share, and that has been the formula that we have followed and that we will follow as well. Of course, we're not leaving price on the table.

On the other hand, you have to find the right balance, and we believe that we have a pretty good balance right now.

Thank you. Then Thank you.

Thank you. Then we take one question here from the tool is from Thomas Jaeger, who says, "Your margin guidance for Q3 '26 of sequential improvement versus Q '23, what drives it, as historically margins were largely flat, Q3 versus Q2?"

Yep. No, it's correct.

You would assume that pretty flat, because historically, I think the four last year has been very flat between Q2 and Q3. This time, we're guiding for what we expect is slightly better or even an improvement in the third quarter, and it really comes from the strong revenue growth that we are guiding for as well.

Normally, a good drop-through on margin in especially in the Electrification business or product-related businesses, so that is what is the background for the guidance.

It also fits what we've said the whole time on the price-to-cost input trend, that we saw half a bigger gap in Q1. We shrunk that gap now a little bit in Q2, and then we expect to improve that, as we have said earlier, in the second half of the year, too, which is also a contributor to this.

Yep.

Thank you. Then we take the next question from Sean at HSBC via the conference call line.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question.

I was intrigued to see that you're now specifying data center cooling as one of the order segments within Motion. Just keen to get a little bit more detail here.

How much of total Motion is data center cooling now? What kind of growth rates do you see?

Is this also a triple-digit growth area? Specifically, I believe you've talked about being a component supplier to cooling, maybe a little bit where you see the key drivers of your growth ambitions in data center cooling.

Thank you.

Right. I can start there on where where we play as Motion with our drives and motors is to be the, as you say, component provider to the cooling companies.

We are partnering with all of the major cooling companies in the world who who delivers those air cooling or large chiller units that sits in the data centers today. We're also part of the cooling when it comes to to to the liquid cooling or the the the units with the that is it's in in the end, it's it's a pump that is pumping that liquid into the to the rack.

Or so you will also see a quite good benefit from us when it comes to in the liquid cooling of motors, drives, and also electrification products that sit in. That's kind of what is relevant for us, and we are partnering with all the different cooling companies, because we are not a cooling player ourselves, we are more partnering that and then the end user or the hyperscaler will discuss which cooling company do they want to work with, and then we can do the electrical part and they will do the cooling part.

That's a partnership how it how it works for us in in cooling. We in Motion, we saw a strong order intake growth also in this quarter, up comparable basis 18%.

Part of that is also coming from the data center. It becomes more and more an important part through kind of the HVAC or the cooling business of of Motion.

I don't have the exact I don't think we have given out the exact percentage as we have done for Electrification, but it is a a good part of the both the drives and the motor business that goes into this cooling companies. It's very often a similar unit that sits in a data center that will sit on top of a large commercial building when you need to cool cool a building.

That doesn't really matter if it's data center or a commercial building as an example.

I think it's fair to say that the growth rates are not as high as you see in Electrification.

No. Then

we take the next question from Daniela at Goldman's. Please, your line should be open.

Hi, good morning. Hope you can hear me.

I was wondering sort of following up on data center, more into the developments that are coming up, where people discuss a lot VDC 800. I think we've seen some of your Asian peers starting to sign VDC 800-related MOUs.

Do you see any momentum on that? Are any of the orders already related to that, or should we be expecting them soon?

Just curious how you see the development for that, if it is still far away or starting to materialize.

We have zero order in the backlog of for 800-volt DC data centers, and nobody has, because there is waiting for the kind of availability of components from the Nvidia and the like, so that's the next step. Of course, what we are working on is building up the complete portfolio, we are ready to support that 800-volt DC data center architecture, which is coming in to more into the late '27 or '28 onwards.

That's where this will start to have a commercial impact. Investment we are doing right now is on the technology side.

DC has been a a high focus and high attention for us for many, many years. We are already a leading player in the in the field of DC switches, DC breakers, DC components.

Then we also see that more of this will move to some of the medium voltage side with with the new architecture, which, again, it will give new opportunities for our medium voltage UPS. Here, this is a field that we are allocating quite a lot of our R&D investment into that area.

We're also doing partnership. We made and also acquisitions.

We announced a couple of days days ago an acquisition in France, Avantics, that is coming in with DC technology with silicon carbide technology and joining the Electrification team, supporting also here DC in data center. It's a an area of high attention for us.

Most of the development work will we'll do in-house, but then also with some acquisition and partnership. That is we believe this is a good opportunity for ABB, because as you may know, DC technology and DC grid, it's what we were one of the first companies here or the first company to talk about DC grids in ships, which is today the standard, and we are using a lot of that know-how and internal development also now into that data center space.

That that is more to come on this topic throughout the year on how we seeing seeing that future.

Maybe a bit of a commercial break here for our webcast on the 24th of September on the DC topic. You'll find the details on the website, ABB Investor Relations.

Then we open up for a question from Kulwinder at AlphaValue, please.

Good morning, everyone. My question was also on Rotork, and I wanted to actually just understand the service opportunity a bit better.

What is the potential for you to increase the penetration of service within Rotork, because as I understand, it's about 24% of 2025 sales, and the company was already on a trajectory to increase that. I just wanted to see where ABB could take it.

Then, does Rotork also give you a sliver of opportunities on the data center cooling and nuclear side as well? Thank you.

Now,

thanks. As I say, I will not go into the numbers as that is for a later stage in this process.

What I can say is that service is one of the areas where we believe that the ABB service network can help and accelerate a well-performing service business already, but to expand that even more. We believe that is one of the good opportunities.

Then of course there are many areas you mentioned, for instance, both data center where you do need actuators for cooling applications, the marine side, there is many at the nuclear side in power. There are all areas where actuators and electric actuators are needed and beneficials.

That is more of kind of areas that needs to be of course explored, but I will leave that to the later stage when we have closed the transaction and when we take this business together.

Very good, and we have a couple of minutes left, let's see if we can squeeze one more question in. We open up the line for Alessandro at Octavian, please.

Yes. Good morning.

Thank you everybody for taking my question. It's on Rotork as well, and I guess you might tell me that you postpone the answer here, but I would like to mark the point.

If I look at your indication for the multiple, acquisition multiple after synergies in mid-teen level, and I make a couple of calculation with a few assumptions on the depreciation, etc., I calculate a return on invested capital on this $5.5 billion I don't know, between 5% and 10%, I would say. In my opinion, you kind of need to double EBIT on this acquisition going forward.

Do you agree with this, and do you have a plan to do that? Can you share some indications?

Maybe not to necessarily counter your calculation here, but like we said, if we look at the multiple at acquisition at 19.5, we do feel that we have synergy opportunities that will bring that into the mid-teens. Those synergies, as we have referred to before, it's going to be both on the cost side, but majority on the commercial and growth side.

I think we certainly don't come to the calculation that we have to double the EBIT, that if I understood your question right. This is a high-performing business that will be accretive to ABB second year, accretive to our EPS, and it comes in at a high performance level, and we're look forward to that utilizing these synergies, like we said.

Yeah. I think that's it.

That's it! That's also it for this call.

We're up on the hour, we close it here. Again, a reminder then about that commercial break for the webcast on 24th of September.

I hope to see you there, and until then, have a nice summer.