Thank you, operator, and to all of you on the call, a very warm welcome to this Q3 2026 earnings call for Atlas Copco Group. Before I hand over to Vagner to start with the short presentation, I will already now remind you to only ask one question at a time during the question-and-answer session, just to make sure that all participants in the call have the opportunity to raise at least their one most important question.

Should we, of course, go through the queue, we, of course, create the opportunity to ask a second question afterwards. Without no further ado, I will hand over to Vagner to present the quarter results.

Thank you, Peter, and welcome to this conference call where we will present the Q3 results. We are also quite happy to announce the result.

I think we are quite pleased to see the development in orders received with a very strong order intake driven by several product lines, several divisions, and the four business areas delivering organic growth, and three of them with double-digit organic growth. It was really good to see.

Of course, Vacuum is outstanding, a very nice development there. Basically, most of our divisions are are doing quite well with good organic growth.

We also see continued growth in service, which is part of our strategy for several quarters. We have positive development in our service divisions, also very happy to see that.

Also the activity level was strong, the order intake strong. We had a record revenues, quite happy to see the level we managed to reach, driven mainly by Vacuum Technique, as we are going speak later on.

We are quite happy with that development as well. Profit margins, I think what I'm happy about is to see the sequential improvement.

I think that was good. Also the fact that we are ramping up, we are now delivering record levels in revenues and we we also managed to deliver a solid operating cash flow.

We are also quite happy with that development. In the quarter, we closed four acquisitions.

Then looking more into the numbers, 52.3 billion Swedish krona in orders received, which is in absolute value also a record level, but we have some currency help there, which ended up in a 25% organic growth, quite solid. Like I mentioned before, record revenues, 47.9 billion Swedish krona, organic growth of 11%, was also good to see in Vacuum Technique they managed to have a very good output and very good organic growth in revenues as well.

Profit margins at 20.8%, but here we had some items affecting comparability in this quarter, mainly the main item was restructuring that we have done in Industrial Technique, specifically related to our German product companies that we had to do an adjustment in Industrial Technique due to low activity, lower volume, but but the the underlying margin was 21.3%. We the the operating profit at 7.7 billion Swedish krona, also very solid, increased in basic earning for sure, very solid cash flow, like like I mentioned.

Year-on-year, you see a drop in the return on capital employed, but sequentially we have we see an improvement in our return on capital employed. Then if we go to the regional split, also quite happy to see growth in all the continents.

If I start in Asia, very strong development, 39% growth, mainly driven by Vacuum Technique, but also the other BAs developed quite well. We have a little bit more challenging in in Industrial Technique, but most of all the the the other three BAs, they had good development in Asia.

When I go to Europe then, 8%, it was a bit more flattish in Compressor Technique business area, but very solid in Vacuum Technique, good in Industrial Technique, and also very good in Power Technique. Considering the situation that we see in Europe, we are quite pleased with a with 8% growth because the environment is a is a little bit more challenging, but we we still managed to grow our business in Europe.

Then North America, very solid as well, 39% growth, again mainly driven by Vacuum Technique, but all the business areas have developed quite nicely in North America this quarter. Power Technique super solid, Industrial Technique as well, driven by both automotive and general industry, very strong, and Compressor Technique also very solid growth in in North America.

In South America, 4% growth, good to see, developing well. The major country in South America is going through election, a little bit of challenge, but still good growth.

Also, we see a recuperation in Africa and Middle East with +21% after a couple of quarters a little bit more challenging is also good to see a good development there where our main businesses are are growing quite nicely. Quite good to see the regional spread and the development of our orders in the different continents.

That is translated then to a 25% order increase organically in our orders received, 3% structural coming from our acquisitions, total, and a little bit of currency help in the top line, total growth 29%, which is which we are, like I said before, quite happy to see that development. Then if we go to the different business areas, Compressor Technique had, like we have mentioned, organic growth, but 6%.

Vacuum Technique, 82%, quite outstanding development in Vacuum Technique. Also Power Technique, 13%, double digit; Industrial Technique, 12%, solid growth.

It's also good to see the contribution of Vacuum Technique growing in in 12-month rolling. Then if we go now more in details, talking about the business areas, organic growth of 6% in Compressor Technique, we are quite happy to see solid demand of our compressors, a little bit more challenging in Europe, like I I mentioned before, not a drama, but it's good to see 6%.

Notable growth on our gas and process compressors, there the development keeps on going quite well. We see LNG continues to be a good contributor, especially coming from the US, but not only.

Also this quarter, we saw good development in market segments like heat pumps for district heating in Europe as one example of markets that performed well this quarter for gas and process. Server service continued to grow, and that has happened for for quite some time, quite happy to see as well, 5% organic growth on Compressor Technique when it comes to revenue, good to see.

We also need to further increase output because of the organic growth. Operating margin at 23.6%, negatively impacted by currency, sales mix from different products and geographies, and higher supply chain cost.

Lower than last week last year, but it's fair to say as well it's the highest profitability that still the highest profitability that we have in the group. We know we can perform better over time, but the most important for Compressor Technique is to continue to grow, and we continue to invest in technologies to achieve that.

One example is this innovation on the cooling side that we can integrate this cooling or work together cooling and compressors, for instance, that could give quite a nice saving for our customers. Not only that, we also closed an acquisition this quarter, Euroclima, that we have added in in the report as well.

It's quite an important acquisition because will will allow us to to step into new markets. There will be more cooling, but not only.

I think they also have low-temperature heat pumps, and we are going to work now at the beginning of this acquisition to to unlock this value. Of course, when you do that, there are quite a lot of integration items at the beginning, but I think Compressor Technique keeps on building technologies that will allow them to have sustainable, profitable growth, and that's what we have achieved over the years, and we will continue.

When it comes to Vacuum Technique, 82% organic growth is really good to see that development. For sure, and this is for Vacuum Technique, was fantastic development on the semiconductor market, but not only.

I think we are quite happy as well to see the development in industrial and scientific vacuum. There are market segments doing quite well.

We see quite a lot of investments in segments like space, R&D, company countries investing more in R&D, that is increasing the demand of our products. In industrial vacuum, we see metal metallurgy that as a very important segment, battery production as well are important segments.

Service business continues, and revenue, was really good to see 28% organic growth in in the revenues. All that has translated in improved profit and profitability, reaching 22.2% profit, mainly driven by increased volume, and and we had an impact coming from the the currency.

Also good to see return on capital employed going up, and we keep on doing innovation. This product now is for industrial vacuum, a new vacuum pump that was one of the first products that we we developed when we started to to step into vacuum, and now we have come with a new design with better energy efficiency, and we continue our journey on innovation as well in Vacuum Technique.

When it comes to Industrial Technique, also pleased with 12% organic growth, really notable growth, very very good growth on on general industry. I think there we managed to focus on growing market segments like electronics, aerospace, defense, and some other segments that where we can find good growth.

Our products has been very well perceived. Some of these market segments, they need to do a fast ramp ramp-up, and we have the right products to support them with that.

Not only, and secondly, solid growth in automotive equipment, mainly driven by the US, and there is because our customers, they need flexible production lines. There is a lot of reorganization going on in the US that requires flexible production line, and we have the right products for that.

Not only, we also see good focus on automation, and like we have said in previous occasions, our our focus on automation, we have done some acquisitions to further unlock this automation journey, is now bringing quite good results, especially in the US where we see good activity level. Revenues 2% organically.

Profit improved, but 18.7% is not where we want to be, and and this time we have done the the adjustments, like I mentioned at the beginning. Some of our German operations were not at the level we would like, and then we decided to adjust.

The underlying profitability is 20.6%. Stable return on return on capital employed.

Here in the bottom, you can also see a nice innovation now for bolting application or or hard high-torque application, offering improved safety, repeatability, and the good thing about this, normally you can do this hydraulically, but when you you add some measurement equipment, you can really offer much better solution for our customers with process control, and that part of the business also growing quite nicely, I must say. Going to the last business area, Power Technique, also solid growth, 13%.

We see improved demand overall, all the divisions performing well. Of course, the development in the US, it's super strong because organically is very good, on top of that we have done an acquisition of NTE that is also performing well.

In many geographies, Power Technique is performing well, good growth as well in specialty rental, and continued growth as well in our service business. Also good to see that they can catch up on on revenues, very solid revenues, and also improved profitability, that was also nice to see that they managed since Q1 to bend the trend and to improve profitability, that was also quite good to see.

They continue to to to invest in innovation. This case is a new generator, TwinPower.

We have two generators inside of that that canopy or container, and the benefit of that is variable load applications can really save a lot of fuel consumption. Keep on investing, and you see that they are also running at record levels revenue, also in Power Technique reached record levels.

Then when we look to our if we exclude the depreciation of intangible of the acquired entities, we reach 22.2%, which is a good development, I must say. Perhaps with that, I can pass to you, Peter.

You can continue on the income statement.

Thank you, Vagner. I think operating profit, 9.95, close to 10 billion, unadjusted, compared to 8.5.

Net financial items were slightly higher than last year, mostly due to the fact that we have a bit of a lower cash position, and, of course, the interest rates tend to be a bit higher. That's the explanation for that.

Likely this is going to be on a similar level going forward next quarter. Then the income tax expense was just above 2 billion, compared to 1.8 last year.

I think a very strong effective tax rate of 21%. We benefited quite a lot from a few tax credits that we managed to acquire, and that helped us to lower the effective tax rate significantly, a bit better than we had actually initially anticipated before the quarter started.

Very pleased with that, but, of course, that being said, for next quarter, we would rather expect effective tax rate to be slightly higher. We think maybe somewhere around the lines of 22.5%.

That brings us then to the profit for the period of 7.7 billion compared to 6.7 billion a year ago, an increase of roughly 1 billion Swedish krona. If I then move to slide number 12, then we can talk briefly about the profit bridge for the Q3 compared to last year.

As you can see, the share-based LTI programs have basically no impact. There is an impact in the quarter, but it's exactly the same almost than last year.

Therefore, no net impact on the margin. The items affecting comparability, as we already said, last year, we had some restructuring costs, both in Vacuum Technique as well as in Industrial Technique, for 206 million Swedish krona.

This year, we have this one-time cost related to Industrial Technique of 132 million SEK, leading to this net 73, which then has a kind of positive impact to the margin, a small one at least. Also, the acquisitions are slightly dilutive, as you can see.

The currency had also a bit negative effects, and, okay, I would say, basically, the main reason for that is the operating exchange differences, and specifically, if I want to isolate one particular currency that has a significant contribution to that total number, then it was the Korean won that strengthened quite substantially across the third quarter and affected us, considering the different types of operation we have, for example, in vacuum, in compressors, etc. That is the explanation for that effect.

Then last but not least, we have the organic development of the margin with a good drop-through and a positive impact on the margin, mostly driven by the organic revenue volumes, the combination of volumes, price, etc., leading to that improved margin. Then to give you a little bit more color, we can go division or business area by business area on slide number 13, starting with Compressor Technique.

As Vagner already mentioned, robust operating profits with a strong focus on continued growth for the future. Then acquisitions also here slightly dilutive.

The currency also negative, but basically for the same reason as I just explained, operating exchange differences with then the most important currency in that effect being the Korean won, amidst many others, of course, as always, but Korean won being the most important detractor, let's say, for that particular point. Then organically, a little bit of dilution, you could say, partly because of mix, a mix that consists of many different components, but let's say highlighting I would say the product mix as well as the geographic mix that plays into that.

Then as we already explained also in the text of the report, we see, of course, an increased cost pressure from the supply chain, and I think we're all aware, given the hot environment that we're all in with data centers being built all over the place, there's a high demand for many different types of commodities, and that, of course, has a bit of an impact in the short term, at least, on the product cost, thinking about things like, and the oil price is not to be forgotten, of course, aluminum castings, desiccant, electrical and electronic components, etc. I think that is explaining a little bit what's going on.

As Vagner already said, still the highest margin across all the four business areas in the group, and I think overall still very solid within the industrial space. Again, we have always indicated that even if we had 25% margin and more at some point in time, that this was not necessarily going to stay like that all the time, and that our main focus is growth of the business with a good value creation for the shareholder in absolute terms, even if we need to sacrifice due to investments we need to make in the relative margin.

Moving on to Vacuum Technique, of course, very strong development in the margin or in the results for Vacuum Technique, driven by the volumes, as you can imagine. We have also indicated last quarter, and that still continues to be the case, that the ramp-up cost is still affecting the margin to some extent, aside from the negative currency that we already mentioned, and a slight dilutive effect from the acquisitions.

Of course, a positive impact from the fact that we can see the restructuring costs from last year coming back into the margin, to say. Again, I think we see sequentially a continued improved operating margin in Vacuum Technique, and for that we are extremely pleased that we can continue to harvest from the volume increase that we are generating, and most importantly, that we are able to deliver to our customers according to the expectations of the customers.

That continues to be the key issue, and if that requires a little bit of higher ramp-up costs and also more agility for the future, then we are quite fine with that. We still see margin expansion going on.

On Industrial Technique, I would say pleased with the fact that we see very strong margin development. Of course, there is of course now the effect of the restructuring cost, but this is a one-off, and I think it's of course to make sure that we adjust ourselves specifically around the automotive area in Europe to the current situation.

Then currency effect is not really relevant, even though slightly negative. Then on the margin, very strong improvement.

To be fair, we need to say that, on the one hand, volume, price, mix is contributing to that. On the other hand, decreased cost level of the tariffs compared to last year.

Last year, they were exceptionally high, I would say, in the early stages. Today, they are a bit more normalized, and that is one thing that you also see coming back in Q3 here, which might not necessarily come back in the coming quarters.

Then last but not least, Power Technique. Also here, both in Industrial Technique and Power Technique, we've over the last 1.5 to 2 years, we've done several restructuring activities, and of course, that is also paying off in the margin.

Also the fact that we have a strong volume, price, mix development within Power Technique contributes to this margin improvement to 18.3%. The currency also here slightly negative.

Acquisitions, mainly due to the NTE acquisition as well as Cryomec, having a positive impact even on the margin given the good development there. If we think about the foreign exchange effect in the quarter, looking forward for Q4, we do believe that, all things being equal, of course, I'm not the oracle of Delphi, I can't predict the exchange rates, but all things being equal, we do expect that the bottom line in absolute numbers will turn slightly positive, somewhere around half a billion Swedish krona, we assume, is likely to become the currency effect in Q4.

With that, I will move then to slide number 14 on the balance sheet. To be honest, not much news to be told here, I think the main thing I would like to mention is that the dividend is being paid as we speak.

Actually tomorrow, the dividend will be officially paid out. We already went ex-dividend a few days ago, so that is the main impact I would say that is going to happen.

Otherwise, I think relative normal development. Of course, in context of the cash flow on slide number 15, I would like to highlight the development of the inventories, the receivables, and the payables, because besides the fact that we've had quite a nice improvement in the operating cash surplus linked to the business development we've seen over the quarter, the strong revenues, and the operating profit coming out of that, we also saw probably a less than one would expect change in the working capital.

With the growth that we're going through, the ramp-up we need to do, one would expect higher inventories, of course, more invoicing means more receivables. Yet if we look at the cash flow, we don't really see that effect rising in a material way, -87 million.

As a result, I would say we are very pleased with the cash flow. It is not a record level that we are glad to admit, but at the same time, in the current growth environment, we believe that the cash flow is super solid for the third quarter.

Then with that, I would like to hand over back to Vagner for some conclusions and explanation about the near-term outlook.

Thank you, Peter. I would like to repeat that our forward-looking statement is a sequential guidance for the next quarter, and refers to our customer activity, excluding large orders, potential FX swings, and seasonality.

I would like to emphasize here, between Q3 and Q4, we have seen over the last years that we do have seasonality, we do have that impact. Of course, we don't know what is the level of the seasonality, especially if you consider we have record levels of orders received, especially in the semiconductor, where we saw quite nice order development, is hard to predict what is going to happen in the semi, but we continue to be very positive about the semi market, a lot of opportunities, we are quite positive.

We just don't know how it's going to play out between Q3 and Q4 and how big is this seasonality. For most of the other segments, we believe the activity will remain at the current level.

Again, how all that will be translated into orders, it's hard to say. We just need to make sure you consider there is seasonality between Q3 and Q4.

Thank you, Vagner. With that, we have come to the end of the presentation and the comments that we wanted to share with you, and we would like to open up for questions now.

Please, operator, if you can guide us through the list. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon.

I just wanted to focus my question on the Compressor Technique division, if you could provide a little bit more color on what in industrial compressors have driven that slight sequential deceleration, whether that is temporary, and what's the impact of the supply chain headwinds that you've seen, both on the top line and on the margin, if you can give any color about how this should evolve going forward as well.

Hey, Daniela. Thank you for the question.

Perhaps you should not read too much on this sequential development, because we said somewhat lower, and it's mainly about Europe. I think we remain quite positive that we can continue to grow the industrial compressor market.

There are even positive signs in certain areas we gain market share, if I can be very specific, China this quarter, we were quite happy with the development, because we did gain market share there. I would not read too much.

On the margins, perhaps, Peter, you can complement.

I think the margin development, the cost pressure that we see, of course, like I said, I think it's a bit linked to a hot market in terms of delivering a lot of industrial equipment. I indicated, of course, the data centers as being kind of very much in the news, but there's a lot of other things ongoing at the same time, and as a result, electronic components, for example, are definitely under pressure in terms of pricing.

I think we all know that if you want to buy a laptop nowadays, you're going to pay a lot more than just 9 months ago. That is, of course, also valid for us at this moment in time, even if we have taken some precautions to try to stock up a little bit in a smart way to avoid as much as possible.

Also, the oil crisis and the effect of the Middle East, of course, is also playing a part into the supply chain generally, and I think it's just part of the inflationary pressures that we see popping up all around us in different areas. We, of course, need to work with that and see how we can handle that from a pricing point of view and from a costing point of view as well, looking for alternative solutions, alternative sources, etc.

In the short term, right now, we believe that it was fair to indicate that we see that pressure, and that it's affecting the product cost in the quarter.

Yeah.

Thank you. Hi, Vagner, Peter, Klas at Citi.

I had a question on the growth in VT and the capacity that you have there. Revenues up 16% quarter-on-quarter, another double-digit quarter-on-quarter sales increase into the fourth, which would perhaps be 45% growth year-over-year at the exit of this year, and then on the drop-through over 30%.

Your message here has been that we shouldn't expect the drop-through to reach those historical levels given the higher cost for the capacity ramp, but now we got there. Is that better pricing now running through the P&L on orders that you've taken before, and therefore, as the capacity cost drops out, could the drop-through perhaps then reach 40%, 50% going forward?

Thank you.

I think the capacity ramp-up is continuing as we speak, and will continue in the next quarter as well. There's no doubt about it.

In Genesee in US, for example, in the third quarter, we've been able to start up gradually the production of spare parts. We intend to continue in the course of the fourth quarter with the assembly of actual pumps.

That means that we are still not at full capacity there, for example, and we need to continue to ramp up as well. We also have indicated earlier that, in order to become more agile in case at a certain moment in time the trend would start bending in the other direction, that we are able to react a little bit better than we were able to do the last time the business went down, we are also trying to make sure that we build in some mechanisms that might be maybe short term a little bit more costly, but in the long term hopefully help us to be more agile.

For example, how we set contract machining, that we don't make the same long commitments as we used to in the past, where today we might need to pay a little bit more, but at least we hope to be more flexible when a downturn, for example, would occur at a certain moment in time.

What I meant, Peter, I didn't mean 40%, 50% drop-through in the fourth quarter already. What I mean is as these sort of capacity ramp costs are gradually sort of dropping out, I assume that you have quite good pricing moving through the backlog right now, at least we hear that from others, and so looking at the drop-through, 33% right now, if you look into '27, I'm not sure how forward-looking you want to be, but it seems like it can improve over time as you continue to deliver.

I hear you, but I think maybe two thoughts. On the one hand, pricing, yes, of course, we are working really, really hard with the different customers in the segment to work on the pricing aspect, but it continues to be extremely concentrated market segment with very, very strong purchasing power from the big players.

Even though we have best-in-class products, we are still not alone in the market. That means, of course, that there is still a competitive play to be made.

In the end, we're working hard on the pricing part, but it is not as evident as one maybe would assume in this strong, vibrant market. I think that's an important component to take with you when it comes to the pricing.

Then when it comes to the margin development going forward, let's say that we do believe that it should be possible to continue to see some level of margin expansion, but we wouldn't suggest that it would be similar as we have seen in the last two quarters maybe, depending on how things develop. I think a little bit of caution around that margin expansion.

We think there is more room, but maybe not as much as we have seen in the past few quarters.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Klas.

Thank you for taking my question. My question relates to CT and specifically in Europe.

With competition ramping up a little bit or getting more, more intense, do you see a price war evolving, especially for standardized compressors? Maybe you can give us a bit of an idea what pricing is and the mix that results in the negative margin effects, especially related to Europe.

Thank you.

I think in Europe, what we see, it's the macro environment is not helping. There are pockets of growth, definitely, but we have a good size in Europe.

I don't see we lose market share in Europe, and we have the tools to compete against competition as well. We also have Chinese brands.

Some of our Chinese brands are becoming global, and they are now going everywhere. I think we have the right tools to compete against.

I'm not concerned at all when it comes to Europe. I'm more concerned about the macro environment.

I think that is my concern. Our position is solid.

Of course, we see the inflation, like Peter already explained, that's also valid for Europe as well. That's not different.

Relating to the mix, what products are then creating the negative mix? Is it standardized, oil, oil-free compressor?

It's more geography that plays a role. That is...

It's also not about deteriorating margin. It's about the fact that some products have better margins than others by default, and that's a fact.

Then of course, depends on the growth of the respective product categories, and the same is valid for the markets. Some markets are more profitable than others, and depending on how you grow in those markets, it supports or does not support the margin as much.

It's more an external factor, you could say in a way, than something that you can directly influence in that sense.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sebastian.

Hi. Good afternoon.

I guess, look, what I'm trying to get to the bottom of is just how to think about this compressor margin over the next couple of quarters, because you did 25.5% margins in the second half of last year, you've just done sort of 23.6%. When I think about some of those things that you talked about with cost inflation, I would think that you have relatively good pricing power, and those should be things that you should be quite quickly moving on pricing to pass through to your customers.

You already mentioned the FX dropped out, I guess what I'm trying to understand is over the next couple of quarters, as revenues grow, should we continue to treat this compressors business as a division that will grow revenues in the top line, but margins will be down year-over-year because of mix, or with pricing actions, should we start to think about this is a business where it will grow revenues and margins can at least be flat or even up? I guess there's a massive difference between you doing second half margins that are 25% to 26% or 23% to 24%.

I'm just trying to understand, could we be in a scenario where revenues are growing and margins are down, because that's not a kind of particularly good outcome for a business, even though I appreciate your margins are at sort of very high levels, and it's a very successful business.

Thank you for the question. I think just to emphasize again, biggest priority number one is to continue to grow the business area.

One thing that I want to highlight as well, and you are right, we have the short cycle and it's that where we can actuate a little bit fast, but we also have the long cycle in that the industrial compressor bucket, and there we could have lead times of a year. We should also consider that there are products that we are invoicing now having this effect that we have sold last year.

It's not a one size fits all here. We do have quite a lot of price activity, that is definitely on the table, but of course, the environment is quite inflationary.

We will continue to work on our price, and we will see how fast we can get that in the P&L. We cannot guarantee that next quarter is going to be changed.

We don't know if that is going to be reverted. We also have the acquisition of Euroclima that will come.

It has a dilutive effect, but very important for the strategy that we want to implement there. Don't know if you have any additional comment, Peter.

No, I think especially the fact that we have quite a significant amount of projects in the orders on hand, not more than usual, I would say, but we do have that, with longer lead times, and of course, if we then are confronted with inflationary effects, then it becomes a little bit difficult for those specific orders to handle that from an operating margin point of view, of course. For new orders, we can of course then implement new prices, and then depending on the lead times, we will be able to realize those, but I think that's important to consider so that you can't really assume kind of turning the corner within a week's time or in a quarter's time, for that matter, and then on top of that, dilutive effect of the Euroclima acquisition.

Just to understand, but you don't have sort of price escalation clauses on some of those contracts with 6- to 12-month lead times?

Oh, but freight could be another particular topic. Freight could be more based on the cost of the freight at the moment that the shipment is happening, that will depend on the specifics, but it's more about the actual product pricing in the contract that has been signed with the customer potentially a long time ago, as Vagner indicated.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you. Another question on Compressor, but slightly different part of the business, gas and process.

Could you just talk about the project pipeline you're seeing and how you feel about the next few quarters? I guess Q2 was exceptional, but this quarter also sounds quite strong, should we think about this quarter being run rate or something between those two being the outlook for the next few quarters?

Thank you.

I think we do have a strong pipeline that we can be transformed in orders, we remain positive about the environment. We are exposed to several market segments like LNG.

This quarter, we didn't have LNG orders coming from Korean shipyards, for instance, but Chinese shipyards did very well for us. This quarter is always a mix, but we remain positive because we are exposed.

A big surprise this quarter was a heat pump for district heating, which is quite a large compressor, quite nice order. I think they are very well positioned to continue to grow.

There will be variations quarter on quarter, but the environment continues to be positive for gas and process.

Referring to last quarter, I would really like to underline again the exceptional order intake for gas and process in Q2, with a lot of orders coming in at the same time like we've seen in other quarters in the past years. I think it's I think a bit tricky to use that as a reference quarter, or to kind of put that into the mix to calculate an average.

I think that's probably kind of the absolute record quarter that you then kind of put in there, and that would be probably a little bit too much.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I would like to ask on VT order.

What's the lead time for VT at this point in time? In terms of customer activities, how do you see the behavior changing?

I think in the last quarter, you are mentioning that was some elements of preordering. How's the situation look like this quarter?

What should be the right level of orders that we should think about in the next couple of quarters, as long as the year-on-year growth is kind of already high, the comps could be difficult, but what should be the right order level that we should be expecting in the next couple of quarters? Thank you.

Talking about the order levels, we saw a little bit more preordering this quarter, that is fair to consider, some key accounts, especially the OEM tool equipment where we sell to some process tools OEMs, we saw there a little bit more preordering that they want to really secure some production slot. I think it's fair to say that we saw that in this quarter.

What we see now with the semi customers, the biggest priority now is that we focus on output, and I think the biggest discussions between ourselves and our customers is output, output. Not so sure if they will focus so much on placing order, because they have done quite a lot now in Q3.

I'm not saying that is going to be good or bad Q4, but I think the focus from our side and we feel the same from our customers, is to get the output. Then

when it comes to lead times, if I may add, Vagner, I think typically we would talk about 3 to 6 months, but now given the amount of orders in the pipeline, this might be a little bit longer. I think in the end, what matters, of course, is that we continue to be better than our competitors at delivering the products to our customers, and I think that will help us to build out market share in the market, I think...

On that, Peter, I must say, I feel quite confident that we are in a very strong position to have very competitive lead time.

Thank you.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions.

Two, if I may. Just sticking to VT for a second, you mentioned that the demand growth is pretty broad-based from a regional perspective.

I'm just wondering, going forward, are you anticipating faster growth in the US versus Asia? Then could you also maybe just talk through your competitive positioning in the US relative to Asia within semi's vacuums?

Maybe just start off with that one, actually.

Thanks. We are in a strong position in Asia, and when I talk Asia, I'm also including China, there very competitive in both, as well in Asia as in North America.

We remain quite positive. I would say there are new players in the market.

I will not mention geographically, but any new player, we are in touch with them, new players in process tools, in some developing and some new countries. I think we are really present in everything that is going on around semiconductor vacuum.

I feel quite confident. Doesn't mean we will get all the market share in these new players, but we are in a solid position, because if you look, I can say with a good level of confidence, we have the highest capacity of dry vacuum pump production.

We are scaling up, and we are prepared to do more if we feel that the market demands will continue or if will go up. I think we have the highest capacity, we are increasing, and we are analyzing the market.

If we feel the need, if new players will come and they need more, we will be prepared for that. I think that is for me the most important, and I feel quite confident about that.

I think also supported by a super strong geographical local-for-local setup across the different continents, I think is an absolute strong argument for our customers to work together with us.

Thank you. Then also you mentioned pricing being relatively tricky in VT given the cohesion of customers and them having high pricing power.

I guess compared to previous cycles, are the pricing discussions getting easier given vacuum as a total percentage of wafer fab equipment spend is actually shrinking, relative to the entire sort of semi capex, it's becoming a smaller and smaller fraction, arguably could become easier over time?

I would say that when it comes to price, I think Peter already gave quite a lot of information. The only compliment I want to give is there are a lot of activities ongoing, even if they are big players.

We also have agreements, and the agreements, they expire in different dates. We have a lot of activity ongoing to reach better price levels, but that will come step by step because of the agreements in place.

Very clear. Thank you.

We have time for one last question, I believe.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm wondering if we could focus down into VT for a moment.

Do you have any sense, given the strong demand and order intake the last few quarters, how much is going to creation of new facilities or fabs versus better activity levels, more production at existing customers or sites?

It's a bit difficult for us to say, but you know how they operate in this market. First, they build what I call the vessel, the premises and everything, the utilities, but not the process tools and not the vacuum pumps.

They first order the process tools, and that the vacuum pumps will come later. What we see, it's a bit of a mix.

There is a lot of population of existing fabs that were built, for instance, last year. Now they are populating with process tools, and then they require our vacuum systems.

We also see new announcements, new players that might come into the market as well, and that we are also involved. I don't have an exact figure to tell you of how much is going to greenfields or just extending new facility.

That number I don't have, because I see both in our figures, extensions and new fabs, and there are quite a lot of announcements already going on about new players that we will also be participating.

Thank you.

Thank you, John. I think with that, we have come to the end of our earnings call for the third quarter 2026.

Again, I would like to thank all of you for your attention and for your active participation and your questions, and we look forward to meeting you in the coming months on the road. Thank you.

Bye-bye.