KION GROUP AG

KION GROUP AG

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 30, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line, the conference will begin shortly, in a few minutes. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the KION Group second quarter 2026 update call and live webcast. I am Chloe, the Chorus Call operator.

I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

You can register for questions at any time by pressing *1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press *0.

The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Rob Smith.

Please go ahead.

Rob Smith

Thank you, Chloe. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to our update call and webcast on the second quarter of 2026.

For the call, please refer to our presentation on the IR website if you're joining in by telephone. I'm going to start with a summary of the second quarter 2026 and some recent business developments, and then Christian will take you through our detailed second quarter financials and talk about our updated outlook for 2026.

I'll be back with some key takeaways, and then we'll get into the questions and answers. Starting together on page 3.

KION showed a positive development in the second quarter. Order intake was a solid €2.8 billion, 20% lower against a record quarter in ITS last year and after a Q1 in ITS driven by pre-buying effects.

Revenue was up 8% compared to the prior quarter level, prior year quarter level. Adjusted EBIT increased 18% to €224 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBIT margin of 7.7%.

Free cash flow performed in line with our expectations and was positive excluding M&A, additional pension funding, and cash out for the efficiency program. Some recent business developments on page 4.

KION is accelerating the development and industrialization of next-generation supply chain robotics, with a focus on autonomous pallet trucks which navigate safely in the warehouse, high precision and efficiency, and include the autonomous loading and unloading of trucks. Truck loading and unloading today is very manpower-intensive, and the future solution will highly automate the process.

In this context, we acquired 70% of Smart Innovation NV, the Belgian retailer Colruyt's research and development subsidiary during the second quarter. These pallet trucks have already been in operation in Colruyt distribution centers for 2 years and will now be scaled up in multiple industries by our KION brands.

The world's talking a lot about AI these days, sometimes in a tangible context, sometimes in rather intangible ideas, and I'd like to share a very concrete example with you today where AI is used in improving our KION operations. The example is KION's spare parts distribution center, demonstrating how AI is creating value for us today.

In spare parts logistics, every second counts. Orders often arrive at the last minute and shipments still must be packed and dispatched on time.

To optimize these processes, especially at the end of the workday when the workload is at its highest, we made significant improvements using predictive artificial intelligence. We can predict with 96% or better percent certainty whether specific orders can be dispatched or if additional items are expected to arrive later.

These real-time recommendations are improving our operations in our warehouses and the on-time fulfillment delivery performance for our customers. Here, AI is not replacing people, rather supporting them in their operational decision-making, resulting in measurable gains in productivity, process reliability, resource utilization, and deliveries to our customers.

Now I'll hand to Christian, and he's going to take you through our detailed second quarter financials.

Christian Harm

Thank you, Rob. Let's go together to slide 6 for the key financials of the ITS segment.

As expected, order intake in units developed atypically in the second quarter of 2026 as the first quarter was significantly positively impacted by pull-forward effects driven by the announcement of a price increase effective April 6th of 2026. Accordingly, order intake in the second quarter amounted to a solid 69,000 units.

New orders in value terms were 6% lower year on year. Service growth of 2% did not fully compensate for the mix-driven 15% decline in new business.

Revenue was up 2% year over year, supported by both the service growth of 3% and new truck revenue growth of 2%, resulting from the good order intake in the first quarter. Adjusted EBIT reached €183 million, and that's 5% year-on-year increase was attributable to savings from the efficiency program and lower expenses for long-term incentive programs, which more than made up for the continued low fixed cost absorption.

The adjusted EBIT margin increased to 8.8%. Now I continue on page 7, which summarizes the key financials for SCS.

Order intake developed in line with our expectations against a record second quarter of 2025. Pure-play e-commerce accounted for 46% of Business Solutions orders.

The remaining verticals in total nearly doubled their order intake, led particularly by food and beverage, parcel, and wholesale. Service showed a good growth of 12%, especially driven by the modernizations and upgrades part.

Overall, revenue increased by 23% year over year due to higher order intake in recent quarters and driven by a 40% growth in Business Solutions. Service revenue increased by 2%.

Adjusted EBIT increased 42% year over year to €60 million, and the adjusted EBIT margin increased by 100 basis points to 7%. Higher revenues as well as lower expenses for the long-term incentive programs contributed to the increase in profitability.

Now let me quickly run through the key financials for the group then on page 8. Order intake development reflects the strong prior-year quarter in SCS on the one hand and pre-buying effects in ITS in the first quarter on the other hand.

Revenue growth of 8% was driven by both operating segments. Adjusted EBIT increased 18% to €224 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBIT margin of 7.7%.

Profitability improvement was driven by both operating segments, supported by savings from the efficiency program, lower expenses from the long-term incentive programs, and lower expenses in the corporate services and consolidation line. Now continuing on page 9, that shows the reconciliation from adjusted EBITDA to group net income.

The non-recurring items in the second quarter were positive, driven by the release of a provision partially offset by approximately €4 million expenses relating to the efficiency program. You may recall that we had said that out of the total expenses of €180 million, €169 million were expended in 2025 and a small remainder will follow this year.

We've slightly reduced our full-year expectations for non-recurring expenses as you will see in the appendix on the slide with the housekeeping items. PPA items were in line with the usually quarterly levels.

The net financial expenses improved year over year, driven by improved net interest expenses from the short-term rental and leasing business. Due to the good development in the first half of 2026, we also reduced our full-year expectations for net financial expenses as, again, you will see on the housekeeping slide in the appendix.

Pre-tax earnings therefore increased to €176 million. Tax expenses of €61 million in the quarter corresponded to a tax rate of 35% and are thus in line with our full-year expectations.

Accordingly, the net income attributable to shareholders increased by 19% to €112 million, corresponding to an improved earnings per share of 86 euro cents. Now let's continue with the free cash flow statement on page 10.

Free cash flow in the quarter reached -€25 million. The free cash flow was solidly double-digit positive, excluding a total of €63 million cash out for the acquisition of a 35% stake in Seeqc Robotics that was announced with our Q1 results, of an additional pension funding, as well as for expenses on the efficiency program.

The increase in net working capital is due to higher trade receivables in SCS from outstanding milestones payments at the end of the quarter. The year-over-year lower free cash flow results mainly from the increase of net working capital, which is expected to substantially improve over the next two quarters.

Now I'm moving on to page 11 that shows the development of the net financial debt and our leverage ratios. Now remember back in February, we started to point out that we intend to broaden the financing of the leasing business to include also debt capital market instruments with general corporate purpose.

We issued such an instrument at the end of March 2026 with a €500 million bond. During the second quarter, we used the bond's net proceeds of €495 million to refinance existing leasing liabilities.

This is the reason why the net financial debt increased not only by the €162 million that you saw on the previous page, but also by these €495 million. The calculation of the industrial net operating debt was revised to deduct those €495 million of financial debt used to refinance the lease business as of June 30th of 2026.

That is the reason for the asymmetrical development of the two debt metrics and the corresponding leverage ratios. Now on slide 13, we laid out our updated guidance for the fiscal year 2026 based on the year-to-date business performance and the current level of orders.

I will quickly walk you through that. For ITS, we have lowered the upper end of the guidance bracket for both revenue and adjusted EBIT to reflect reduced expectations for the second half year based on the current macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions.

We now expect revenue between €8.2 and €8.5 billion and adjusted EBIT between €765 and €835 million in the full year 2026. For SCS, we have slightly raised both ends of the guidance brackets for revenue and narrowed the ranges for adjusted EBIT based on the good performance in the first half year and a better visibility on the second half.

We now expect revenue between €3.325 and €3.525 billion and adjusted EBIT between €230 and €270 million for the full year 2026. For KION, this results in narrowed guidance ranges with slightly lower midpoints in all outlook metrics.

I think you can actually all read the table faster than I can read it out, I will skip that in the interest of time. As mentioned earlier, you will find the slide on the housekeeping items as usual in the appendix.

With that, I now hand back to Rob for our key takeaways.

Rob Smith

Thank you, Christian. Let's turn to page 14 for our key takeaways.

KION had a positive first half 2026 with a moderate increase in revenue driven by growth in SCS. Adjusted EBIT and the corresponding EBIT margin improved in both operating segments.

We're accelerating the development and industrialization of next-generation supply chain robotics with a focus on autonomous pallet trucks, including the autonomous loading and unloading of trucks. In this context, KION acquired 70% of Smart Innovation NV during the second quarter.

KION continues to make significant advances in development of innovative AI-based solutions. We're leveraging AI in a predictive model helping us streamline operations in our parts distribution center, resulting in measurable gains in productivity, process reliability, and resource utilization.

With the first half behind us and increased visibility on the second half, we narrowed our guidance ranges today for revenue, adjusted EBIT, ROCE, and free cash flow. Our updated outlook remains subject to no additional significant burdens arising from the current geopolitical situations.

This concludes the presentation. Thanks for your interest so far.

Let's move back to Q&A now. Chloe, please open the line.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session.

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press * and 1 on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue.

If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press * and 2. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question.

In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. Anyone who has a question may press * and 1 at this time.

The first question comes from Sven Weier with UBS. Please go ahead.

Sven Weier

Good afternoon from my side. The first question, if I may, is on the truck EBIT guidance.

If we take the midpoint of the new guidance and you kind of assume you keep the same EBIT in Q3, it implies significant pick up to €250 million of EBIT in Q4, which would be quite unusual even when considering seasonality. I was just wondering from a kind of an EBIT bridge what you assume to get there, or would it be fairer to assume that you actually rather achieve the lower end of this truck EBIT guidance?

Thank you.

Christian Harm

Hi, Sven. This is Christian on that end.

Sure you noticed if you look at the guidance and at the midpoint, we actually expect higher revenue on the ITS side at the midpoint to come in the second half of the year, also on the base of a market that shows dynamic, and so we expect that also from order intake to come that we can realize in the revenue. As we have been pointing out that we are seeing an underutilization of resources, you can imagine that that does not come with incremental fixed costs, right, and therefore that revenues sort of plays into that line.

That's the main element, right? Supporting element is that also in terms of the efficiency program, the savings in the second half will be slightly higher than in the first half from the phasing, right?

That will also support that element. Then throughout the year, we have also made a reference to pricing, in particular the order intake that we had at the back end of last year in the fourth quarter.

Now this has been now actually realized also in sales, right, and therefore we also expect that effect to wash out, right, in the second half of the year, and so that pricing also has a positive effect in the development for the second half.

Sven Weier

That sounds like you feel relatively confident also in the midpoint of that guidance given those factors, right?

Christian Harm

I would say as always, we feel the guidance that we are putting into place is a balanced guidance, yeah, and so I think that sums it up, right.

Sven Weier

That leads also to the second question I had because you were mentioning that revenue at the midpoint being higher in Q4, and on the back of maybe also an improvement in the order intake. Are you observing this already that now the pre-buy effect is out and orders start to trend more positive during Q3?

Is that the assumption?

Christian Harm

I would refrain from making a reference in Q3. Us quite well, Sven, and you know the business, right?

A Q3 in particular, more than any other quarters, right, is very much depending on sort of the final months, right, naturally with summer, right? It's very difficult to make a judgment on a quarter in the current trading over summer before September is done, and then we already talk about the full quarter, yeah.

Therefore, I would not actually want to add on sort of the quarterly phasing to that, right, in addition to what I already said on your first question.

Sven Weier

Basically, the Q4 revenue momentum should also come from the existing backlog then?

Christian Harm

Existing plays into that one, but for sure, as I said, we expect dynamic in the market also in the order intake to be realized also in revenue in the second half of the year, yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Sven Weier

Understood. Thank you, Christian.

Operator

The next question comes from Tore Fangmann with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Tore Fangmann

Thank you for taking my questions. Hi, Rob.

Hi, Christian. Maybe just one follow-up question on the margin side.

Appreciate you gave us a lot of detail already, but could you maybe just remind a little bit on how is the pricing competition currently looking? Feels to me like there was some increased competition also between the Western European players basically within this quarter.

Together with this, what really needs to happen from here for you to achieve the 10% medium-term margin? Thank you.

Rob Smith

Sure, Torsten. We don't comment on other people's pricing.

As I'm sure you'll recall, we did put a price increase into the market. We put it in there effective 6 April.

We had some pull-forward effect that we described in the first quarter. As Christian just described, we have been very consistent in building down our lead times on delivering trucks from a very high number of months, over a year back in '22, to now probably plus or minus 4 months is a pretty good lead time now.

The pricing that we put in place from April, as that now is affecting the second half of the year, we expect that that pricing will have an impact on the order intake we take, the orders that we're building, and the revenue that we're getting in the second half. My preference is just to simply comment on our own pricing.

Tore Fangmann

Appreciate. Any views on the next steps that are needed for the 10% medium-term target?

Rob Smith

Yep. It's volume, it's mix, it's service.

It's good volume and good mix and good service, and good performance, good execution.

Tore Fangmann

Okay. Very very fair.

Then just one last from my side is we have seen very decent PMI strength actually across regions, both US, also Europe, so far year to date. Still, if we look at the total ITS order intake for the first half, basically then compare it to the first half last year, we're down -1% roundabout.

We've seen a bit of a decline versus the PMI actually showing some positive signs. Any view on phasing, on when we should this improved activity in Europe see filtering through to forklift volumes as well?

Rob Smith

Maybe and I comment more on the market, if you will, and my observations on the market. Consistent with what we've said in the past, Torsten, we see that the trough is behind us for both of our segments.

You're asking specifically about the ITS market. We do see the ITS market bringing substantial growth this year in units.

As the value of those units lags the growth in the units themselves. That's a dynamic you need to be aware of or at least be building into your models.

I think you know that one. If you're talking PMI, with the geopolitics and news flashes these days, you almost need to take a time-date stamp on when did the PMI come out and then what was the next morning's news and developments.

Correlating those too closely, just a one-shot number with the overall market, but indeed there's growth in the market in both of our segments.

Tore Fangmann

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Gael de-Bray with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Oh,

Gael de Bray

thank you. Good morning.

The ITS gross margin took a hit of more than 100 bps in Q2 compared to Q1. Could you provide a bit more color on this negative sequential development?

Do you expect the ITS gross margin to be back to prior levels, around 29% as of H2, given the recent price rises, or is it a bit premature?

Christian Harm

Yes, the gross margin development was as you described basically, and that actually was across the segments at the portfolio, if you will, right, from the new business, and then the mix in the new business, but also in the services. We expect that actually to pick up, yeah, as such also going forward.

As I said, as gross margin also incorporates an element of fixed costs by definition, right, and with an incremental revenue, we should have a better utilization on the product side, and that should actually support the gross margin development going forward, which is a part of my answer that I had in the first question from Sven, right, in terms of where would I see the pickup in the margin in the second half of the year.

Gael de Bray

What really drove the disappointment versus internal expectations for ITS margins in Q2?

Christian Harm

When you say internal expectations, I guess you make a reference to the pre-close call, right? Okay.

Thank you. Basically, there were FX changes that we had in the end of the month, right, from particular currencies, one of them the Polish zloty that came in, right, that were sort of not incorporated in our internal expectations, and that's sort of is part of what drove then the expectation also on the margin in the end for the segment.

Gael de Bray

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Timothy Lee with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Timothy Lee

Hi. Can you hear me okay?

Rob Smith

Yes, Timothy. You're good.

Timothy Lee

All right. Cool.

Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is about the current trading momentum also for the warehouse automation side of thing.

Can you also give a bit color on what's going on market, how's the order activities look like in terms of the order intake by the industry players? Thank you.

Rob Smith

Sure. You're asking about current trading in Q3.

I think Christian covered the ITS market very well with the summer pause in July parts and August parts. Q3 is always strong in September.

Now talking about the SCS segment, glad you brought that up, also the trough is clearly behind us in the SCS segment. We had very good growth ourselves and the market grew well last year.

Our view is the market's got strong growth in it this year. Our orders, as we called out, it's across all segments.

You saw the 46% pure-play e-commerce, and the other verticals almost doubled on a comparative basis. We've got good strong orders across all verticals in terms of a good market development there.

What I'd point out to you is, at least at this point in time, there has not been a perceptive or perceivable slowdown in customers' willingness to be starting new orders based on the conflict in the era. We're keeping a close eye on that, and we'll keep you posted.

At this point, good growth in both segments and good growth in SCS across multiple verticals.

Timothy Lee

Understood. Very helpful.

Thank you. My second question is about the competition again.

I think if I look at the numbers of the Chinese trucks imports, it seems to be also picking up year to date. Can you give also some color on how's the competitive landscape look like for the overall truck market, especially from the perspective of the Chinese players?

Rob Smith

Sure, Timothy. You've observed that right, and you've observed that correctly.

There is strong growth in the market with the sit-to players during the course of this year so far. That's the right observation.

That's what we're seeing. That's what we're seeing as well.

I heard you talk about commercials around that and pricing, for example. Look, I think the whole point I would get to is we see that growth, and we see it's a growth market.

As we are driving our order intake, we take a careful balance on driving order intake along in a good balance with achieving our margin targets. We're not chasing every single last deal if we think the margins aren't going to be good.

Timothy Lee

All right. Understood.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Akash Gupta with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Akash Gupta

Yes, hi. Good afternoon, Rob and Christian.

My first one is on M&A. I think you set aside €200 million for M&A this year, and when I look at your cash flow statement in the report, so far you have spent around €36 million according to cash flow statement.

Maybe if you can talk about what else left in the pipeline and is there any chance that the final amount on M&A could increase or exceed or short fall behind this €200 million that you have set aside? That's the first one.

Christian Harm

Akash, I'll take that one. Yes, you have noticed obviously the amount that we have spent in the first half of the year.

The next one is in line, if you will, is the one that Rob made a reference to in the highlights for this quarter, which basically has done a closing in the month of July, and that will be a lower double-digit million amount, right, and that's also closed meanwhile, right? Going out.

I still hold to the €200 million for the remaining of the year. As always, it will very much depend on the timing of the closing, which is not just a factor of will we do the signing, but then also do we go wherever we have to go through regulatory processes that take their time.

We will see to that, but our pipeline and what we are looking at right now is supporting still the €200 million, and that's why I'm maintaining this as the current number.

Akash Gupta

Thank you. My follow-up question is for Rob, and this is more of a strategic or maybe technology question.

We see a lot of interesting development on humanoid robots, and there is a big interest on what these humanoid robots can do. Of course, warehouse are one of the areas where people think about their applications.

We already see their use in factory floor where German automotive companies are leading the deck in Europe to deploy these humanoid robots. The question I have for you is that when you look at, let's say, on a medium-term 3 to 5-year basis, do you see that as an opportunity, given you are the leader in warehouse automation business, is this something that you can integrate with your warehouse automation system to improve overall productivity, or this is more of a threat where there may be some sort of risk to some of the forklifts that go in warehouse or in factories that might be replaced with humanoid robots in future?

Thank you.

Rob Smith

Sure. Let's answer your question back to front here, Akash.

In terms of would humanoids be replacing industrial trucks on the shop floor, very much less so. Don't see that particularly.

The applications for humanoid robots are not particularly moving pallets. The applications for humanoid robots are on smaller, lighter things, and sometimes it's picking and placing, for example.

I think that's what we call the lane 2, the startup and flexible mobile automation. It's a little bit like a horse race, and you have to back quite a few horses in that race.

Clearly, one of our technology partners is a humanoid technology partner, very reputable one. We see humanoids as one of the potential technologies that will be growing over the next 3 to 5 years, that will be integrating into our warehouse automation solutions, our supply chain automation solutions.

As the integrator with the right orchestration capability, we have a very exciting opportunity to be able to integrate our own technology, Akash, as as well as third-party technology, especially in this mobile and flexible and potentially humanoid automation, and integrating that into an overall solution. We're ready for that.

You can use a subsystem of a humanoid, too. You don't need the entire body to do what an arm does for picking and placing.

There's a lot of automation picking and placing robots at the end of picking and placing lines right now, and I think that'll probably increase. We'll see on the overall humanoid.

The elegant thing about a humanoid robot is it does fit into the same brownfield work environment where a human fits in, without having to modify the working environment. That's kind of the intriguing thing on it.

We talk about about 80% of the world's warehouses and distribution centers are still quite manual. We'll see how that develops.

We're ready when it comes, and one of our technology partners is working strong on that, and we'd be integrating that into our overall solution.

Akash Gupta

Thank you, Rob.

Operator

We now have a question from the line of Philippe Lorrain with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Yes, thanks for taking my question. Good afternoon.

Philippe Lorrain

I wanted to have maybe from your side any further color on the pricing and the mix impact weighing on the ITS new business order intake trend in the second quarter. Besides the regional mix, which is quite obvious, there's a delta of about -14 percentage points, if I calculate that correctly, between the -1% in volume and the -15% in order intake in value there.

I just wanted to understand a little bit because that 14 percentage point is quite puzzling.

Christian Harm

Philippe, Christian on that one. Maybe as you rightly pointed out, and one can actually have a look at that in the appendix, right?

There is in that development, right, there's obviously a regional mix effect. As you have pointed out, the development was quite different in EMEA than from APAC, growth in APAC 14%, 6% less in EMEA, right?

That's a mix effect. We have a mix effect from the product lines themselves.

You can also see that from both counterbalance lines, E and IC truck, both approximately 10% down, warehouse 3% up, right? Your question was the next on pricing, right, which is then the other element, right?

The development actually is to be attributed to the mix rather than the pricing, right? We have increased our pricing in Europe on the 6th of April for the cross-board.

We have done the same thing also in APAC in the following weeks. Basically we maintain our pricing there, remain rational on that end.

The development that we are seeing there is basically a mix development, regional and product mix rather than a pricing development.

Philippe Lorrain

Just to follow up on that, did you have any, let's say, abnormal ordering activity from the rental fleet, because this one would trigger volumes but no value in orders?

Christian Harm

Yes, we have a higher growth in rental, right? When we talk rental also for the operating lease, right, that share also went up a bit, but we've been talking also on rental.

In rental, as you rightly point to the fact, you have actually units, right, reflected in the order intake, but the revenue and then the order intake value-wise and the revenue is actually then distributed over the time of the rental period or the usage period of the rental truck, right? Sort of that also plays into this difference between a value order intake and a unit order intake, yeah, as a technical consequence.

Philippe Lorrain

Perfect. There's no, let's say, specific view to have on the ordering of the rental fleet in the next quarters, no, I guess?

Christian Harm

No, nothing that I would highlight at this point.

Philippe Lorrain

Perfect. Then the second question I have is also to you, Christian.

It's more regarding the change in net debt, etc. Should we expect the portion of the net financial debt that is used to finance the leasing and the rental businesses to grow in line with the rental and leasing-related assets in the future?

Because in the past, what you seem to call the leasing RCF was evolving that way over time.

Christian Harm

I'm not sure, Philippe, I got the last part of your question. Could you please repeat that?

Just acoustically. Yeah.

Philippe Lorrain

I was just asking whether we should expect the portion of the net financial debt, the nearly €500 million that went up in this quarter, and that is used to finance the leasing and rental business to grow in line with the rental and leasing-related assets in the future.

Christian Harm

Again, the €495 million, right, that's the specific use of an instrument for the leasing and the rental, right? Now we have used that instrument, so that's done then, right?

Should we, and this is not just to illustrate the mechanics of the model, should we use another instrument issue another bond, which at this point in time there is no need, right, then that number would change. If not, that number would not change because we have used and consumed, if you will, for the leasing and rental business, we have now used the proceeds of the bond.

Okay.

Philippe Lorrain

To put that in other words, basically you have that financing in place. Now whatever comes in terms of increase of the leasing book, for instance, would be related to increases in the leasing liabilities in the balance sheet up to the next step when you need to have another instrument like that.

Yep.

Christian Harm

Yes, that's exactly correct.

Philippe Lorrain

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator

We now have a question from the line of Adrian Pehl with ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.

Adrian Pehl

Yes, hi everyone. Actually, I've got two questions.

One is on the SCS segment. As we have spoke about also gross profit margins on ITS, I was just wondering, looking at the performance and putting whatever constant gross profit margin on service gives me the impression that actually on the Business Solutions development that has been rather stable sequentially.

The question is then obviously where should additional margin increases come from? Is that basically because you also see a better loading, and since you are working through these loss-making contracts, we should see a pick up in the gross profit margin in SCS, or is the development that we should potentially expect to meet your guidance rather coming from SG&A or other operating expenses elements?

That's my first one. The second one is a bit on the regional revenues, which I found quite interesting.

When my model doesn't lie, actually you had in ITS now an increase in Western Europe in Q2, which was positive with 3.7%, and that was first time since what was it, five quarters basically. Despite what we discussed on the order intake potentially a bit on the weaker side, nevertheless quite interesting to see this development.

Is that more a factor also of pricing, or would you also see that there is some pickup and good conversion of the order book into revenues? That's it from my side.

Thank you.

Christian Harm

Adrian, on the SCS side and the margin development on the SCS side, right, it all comes back to sort of the usual set of drivers here, right? Because basically, yes, the one thing is, as we have said, we are still working off the legacy projects and the progress on that one, and that's a reflection that it is less and less a burden on the results of the SCS side, so that's the one element.

It's the project execution as such and the margin quality, to speak, of the orders that we are getting in, right, and maintaining that. Then also on service, right, we expect actually service to grow also going forward, and that will have a contribution to the margin quality as well, yeah.

With revenue, but at the midpoint we are not looking at the midpoint of the guidance to a significantly higher revenue in the second half of the year, as you rightly pointed out, right, but with revenue, obviously, also operating leverage from the SG&A is coming, right? That's probably not the main lever in the second half of the year as that is more directed to the other elements that I made a reference to in terms of execution, working down the legacy project, and the service growth.

Adrian Pehl

Just then also pointing to better gross profit margins on our Business Solutions as part of SCS, I would assume, right?

Christian Harm

That's then the consequence, yes, Adrian.

Adrian Pehl

Very clear.

Operator

We now have a follow-up from the line of Sven Weier with UBS. Please go ahead.

Sven Weier

Thanks for taking the follow-up. It's on factory load, because I would assume that when we look at the entry-level segment of your truck sales where you have the EP partnership, that this is going quite well and probably going to stay quite well.

I was just wondering in terms of improving your factory load, is this something you could do internally yourself, or could you not do this cost-competitively when you look at your terms that you have with EP?

Rob Smith

Let's be clear about that, Sven. I'm glad you asked the question, actually.

Done. The EP partnership, it's one element of our overall strategy.

We've got a very comprehensive strategy for China for China as well as China for the rest of the world. The EP partnership goes all the way back to 2018 when we bought our share in EP.

That's an element. We have other partners there, too.

The very small warehouse trucks is primarily the hand trucks is what we source from EP. We've got our own very strong China footprint, as third largest player in the entire market, only Western player.

The rest of the Western players left over the years, where we build in our new factory in Jinan that we built in 2021, the product for the economy and value line segments, the counterbalance trucks there. We do that in China for China, we do that in China for export to all of our other regions as well.

That's a very well-performing truck in the market. We're in the process now of extending one of our other factories in China, the larger warehouse truck production, looking to build exactly the same kind of We talk about the KGCB, the KION Group Counterbalanced, that's the one that we designed and engineered and sourced and build in China and is competitive in China and competitive for export.

The larger warehouse trucks, not these very, very small hand pallet trucks, but the larger warehouse trucks, we're putting in place a global platform, too. We expect to be introducing that over time, and that will be exporting, be playing in China against the players there competitively, and also be exported to other places in other regions.

The factory load is a load that it's going against our own factory in China.

Sven Weier

Insourcing those hand pallets wouldn't really move the dial, if I understand you correctly, even if you were doing them yourself? Wouldn't matter?

Rob Smith

Now we're back to the story on value and units, Sven. I trust that you're talking value, and you're exactly right.

On a unit basis, insourcing would jack the units, but wouldn't do anything to the financials.

Sven Weier

We obviously all observed now that Jungheinrich has also taken a stake in EP just like yourself. Does that make you feel uncomfortable, or do you see this well kind of ring-fenced, to speak, and there's no collision with your interests in the partnership?

No,

Rob Smith

we're relaxed about that, Sven. We've been working with EP and John He there.

We started our formal partnership in 2018, 8 years back, but we've known him and his company for many, many years and feel like we've got a very good working relationship there.

Sven Weier

Understood. Thank you, Rob.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Rob Smith for closing remarks.

Rob Smith

Thank you, Chloe. Thank you all very much for joining our call today and each of your good questions.

I hope you've had a good summer and are about to have a real good summer when you go on vacation. We'll look forward to keeping the dialogues going in the weeks to come in our virtual conferences.

Christian, the IR team, and I will be presenting in September. We'll see you back here with our Q3 2026 results for our call at the end of October.

Thanks very much, and all the best. Bye-bye.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference.

You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.