Welcome to Knorr-Bremse, Marc Llistosella, the financial results of the third quarter 2025. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. I now turn the floor over to your host, Andreas Spitzauer, Head of Investor Relations.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon as well as good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I hope all of you are very fine. My name is Andreas Spitzauer, Head of Investor Relations, and I want to welcome you to Knorr-Bremse's presentation for the third quarter results of 2025. Today, Marc Llistosella, our CEO, and Frank Weber, our CFO, will present the results of Knorr-Bremse's so-called Q&A session. Once again, the conference call will be recorded and is available on our homepage, www.knorr-bremse.com, in the investor relations section. It is now my pleasure to hand over to Marc Llistosella. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Andreas. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our capital market call for the third quarter 2025. We'll start with the key takeaways for today on page two. We're reporting a strong quarter today. In uncertain times, we continue to focus on our earnings by using our financial tax advantage, keeping strict cost control, plus staying close to customers and driving our service business. Knorr-Bremse benefits from dominant market position in both divisions and diversified revenue generation and ongoing stringent execution. RVS is in strong shape. It's posted strong organic growth and continuously increases its profitability quarter over quarter by the implementation of compost. In addition, RVS performance underlines the great potential of the rail industry in total. As a consequence, we are expanding this successful division with the acquisition of. To work on. Coming to CVS, one thing is clear.
The development of profitability is the most important indicator of our success, and our truck colleagues delivered. Despite an extremely challenging North American truck market, CVS managed a slight margin to the tangent on extraordinary achievement, which is based on the benefits of our cost and efficiency measures, well supported by a more resilient aftermarket business. The BOOST program overall remains the centerpiece of our strategy and is fully on track. Regarding our brownfield measures, we are well on track. Lost the sale of the last asset within the sell-it program. This asset within rail generates roughly EUR 300 million in revenues and is clearly dilutive. Looking at greenfield, our clear path of additional growth and accretive business expansion for Knorr-Bremse. In the field of subscription-based and data-driven services, we recently acquired TRAVIS Road Services.
Together with Cojali's highly traditional services, we want to strengthen the less cyclical activities in the truck segment, striving for a leading position in Europe and later beyond. Lastly, please do confirm our operating guidance for 2025. Let's now have a closer look at our duagon acquisition on charge free. Duagon itself, a Swiss-based company, is a leading supplier of electronics and software solutions for safety-related applications in rail, being active in Europe, North America, China, and India. We are convinced Duagon is an excellent strategic fit for Knorr-Bremse's existing portfolio. Beyond strengthening the RVS segment, the acquisition also unlocks substantial synergies in electronics, for example, in braking and tow systems, where we are already global experts. Furthermore, the product will enhance the global operations of two key KB business units, Selectron and KB Signaling.
As trains and railwork networks become increasingly digitalized, the acquisition enables both the railway electronics and signaling technology units to fully capitalize on the rapidly growing market. With KB Signaling, which is expanding its North American business globally, Duagon offers additional opportunities for international growth. The accretive transaction reinforces KB's BOOST strategy and marks another milestone on its transformation journey. By integrating Duagon, Knorr-Bremse strengthens its position in high-growth digital markets and increases the revenue share of the RVS segment overall, currently from 55% to even beyond, driving sustainable value creation. The acquisition fulfills all of the M&A guardrails which we have defined by ourselves, which we set more than two years ago and follow for the time being. We welcome all new colleagues to the team and look forward to a successful future. Let's now have a look at the market situation for rail and truck.
Overall, the demand in rail is our least problem within the KB group. Underlying demand remains robust across all regions, as evidenced by strong order intake and record order books for RVS and its customers. We expect this momentum to continue in the coming quarters, resulting in a full-year book-to-bill ratio well above one. The only exception in this is the freight market, which continues to face some challenges. Also here, we see a low concentration on the North American market. The market development in China itself remains pleasing on a high level this year, which is quite supportive for our profitability as well. Truck markets show a mixed picture.
As you're all aware of, and as you have already heard from our customers and peers, truck production rate in Europe moved higher the past quarter, but currently, we are observing a slight softening in market momentum, including some performance into next year, which also corresponds to the perceptions of our truck OEMs. The North American market is in a very challenging time. Truck production rate declined significantly in the third quarter, and in near time, recovery appears unlikely. Therefore, we lowered our expectations regarding truck production rate for the second half of this year, as the usual autumn recovery has also been significantly weaker this year compared to the previous years. Our North American customers are still taking single days off and slowing down production lines in their factories so far.
They are acting rationally and only adjusting their workforce as they know that markets can catch up quickly, especially in North America, once a recovery starts. As a result, we have reduced our North American workforce by around 15%+ in the recent months. Help yourself and help your God. At the same time, we are using the current situation to consistently implement our structural measures. Better than originally expected development in Europe cannot compensate fully for weaker-than-expected development in North America. Nevertheless, every crisis presents opportunities. We should benefit by operating leverage from a lower fixed-cost base when the crisis in North America comes to an end, which will happen. With that, I will hand over to Frank, who will give you a walk through the financials in detail.
Thanks, Marc, and hello, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. Please turn to slide five, and let's have a look at the financials for this quarter. Order intake achieved a strong result at almost EUR 2 billion. The market-driven decline in truck was overcompensated by the strong rail order intake and led to a more than 5% organic growth. Knorr-Bremse generated revenues of EUR 1.9 billion organically, with nearly 3%, a slightly higher figure year- over- year. Our operating EBIT margin was positively impacted by both decisions, driven in particular by our portfolio adjustment, strong aftermarket performance, our operating leverage, and the respective cost measures, and, of course, KB Signaling. As a result, the operating EBIT margin improved by 100 basis points year- over- year. With a 13.6% operating EBIT margin, we delivered the best profitability within the last 16 quarters for Knorr-Bremse.
Our free cash flow in quarter three amounted to EUR 159 million and converted once again into more than 100%. We are proud of our global teams, maneuvering KB so successfully through a rather challenging 2025. Let's move to slide six. CapEx amounted to EUR 78 million, which represents in relation to revenues 4.2%. Spending in absolute numbers decreased by EUR 2 million. This development is fully in line with our strategy to optimize CapEx spending, following our lowered target range of CapEx to revenues of 4%-5%. We expect some higher CapEx spending in the running quarter, as usual. A pleasing development saw, once again, our networking capital, which decreased significantly year over year, respectively, by seven days versus prior year. Including KB Signaling, we are at the level of EUR 1.6 billion and 72 days of efficiency.
The continuous improvement in net working capital is based on the ongoing success of our collect program, including improvement basically in all major working capital ingredients. Especially, the lower level of inventory supported the improvement of working capital by more than EUR 160 million year- over- year. Free cash flow amounted to EUR 159 million. This is only a slightly lower figure compared to the prior year, driven by the unfavorable development of FX. On a nine-month view, free cash flow even increased by more than EUR 70 million. Quarter four will be the strongest quarter, as always, following our usual seasonal pattern. Cash conversion rate in the third quarter amounted to a strong 104%. Despite the acquisition-driven higher capital employed, our ROCE nicely increased from 18.6% to 21%, which is an increase of 240 basis points.
ROCE remains a high key priority for us, and we expect to further grow it in the future, primarily driven by a higher profitability. Let's take a closer look at the RVS performance on slide seven. RVS, once again, delivered a very strong quarter in terms of order intake, reaching nearly EUR 1.2 billion. This corresponds to an organic growth of 6%, driven by solid operations and contributions from KB Signaling. Global rail demand overall remains strong. For the current quarter, we expect that RVS should be able to post an order intake between EUR 1 billion to EUR 1.1 billion. Our book-to-bill ratio is still at 1.12, which means RVS book-to-bill ratio at or above one for 16 quarters in a row. As a consequence, order backlog increased by around 8% and 12% even organically, reaching again a new record level with almost EUR 5.7 billion.
The high order backlog and the good quality of it provides a strong basis for the rest of the year as well as beyond. Let's move to slide eight. Revenues in quarter three amounted to EUR 1.05 billion, an increase of almost 6% year- over- year, following a bit of a weaker organic growth in quarter one and quarter two, and even despite significant FX headwinds. Our aftermarket business developed also very nicely in Europe, North America, and APAC. From a regional point of view, revenue growth was fueled by Europe and North America. In Europe, both OE and aftermarket business grew nicely. In North America, it increased aftermarket and OE business despite FX headwinds. The APAC region saw very stable aftermarket development, while OE slightly declined. China only slightly decreased year over year in both OE and aftermarket.
We are pleased about that stable development in China, especially in high-speed local business and the aftermarket. There are still no signs of a better midterm market. We improved our operating EBIT margin by 100 basis points to 17.0%, which is already beyond our midterm guidance for next year. This improvement is driven by the positive aftermarket development, operating leverage, our BOOST measures, as well as the positive contribution of the Signaling business. In the current quarter, we expect a book-to-bill ratio of around one. The EBIT margin of RVS should be flat quarter over quarter. On a full-year level, the operating margin is expected to be at around 16.5%. Let's continue with the truck division on chart nine.
Order intake in CVS amounted to EUR 783 million, below our initial expectations at the beginning of the quarter due to the missing pickup in the North American truck market after the summer break. On the other side, organic orders increased by 4%. On a year-over-year organic level, this growth was driven by Europe and the APAC region, which recorded slight organic growth, while North America was significantly down, picked by the sharp downturn in the U.S. market. Order intake in the current quarter should be rather flat quarter over quarter, supported by Europe and the APAC region. The North American market remains very difficult to fully assess at this point in time, but we expect no improvement of the market dynamics until year-end. Book-to-bill reached 0.94 in the past quarter.
Our order book of more than EUR 1.7 billion at the end of September is 7% below the previous year's level, but at the same time, it is only 2% organically lower. Let's move on to our CVS division on chart 10. Revenues declined to EUR 833 million, which represents -9% year- over- year. This development is solely driven by the divestment of GT and Sheppard, as well as the negative translationary FX impact from the U.S. dollar and the Rimimbi, especially. In organic terms, the development was stable, which represents a solid performance in such a challenging environment. OE business in CVS decreased, as expected, in North America and South America, predominantly driven by lower truck production rates and FX. Europe recorded and the APAC region even significant growth. Our aftermarket business performed much better than OE in the past quarter.
The OE business grew in Europe and China, but the strong market decrease in North America could not be compensated by aftermarket growth. In addition, the sale of Sheppard and the strong euro exchange rate compared to the U.S. dollar, a low truck production rate, had a particular negative impact on our performance, especially in the U.S. In the current quarter, we expect that CVS total revenues should be flat to very slightly increasing compared to the third quarter. Coming to the bottom line, operating EBIT of CVS amounted to EUR 87 million in the past quarter, down around 4% year- over- year. Given the massive market headwinds and unfavorable FX, a very resilient quarter.
Profitability was impacted by lower OE volumes and an unfavorable regional mix, which could be more than compensated by benefits from our BOOST measures, a higher aftermarket revenue share, solid contributions from our portfolio adjustments, as well as a recovery from tariff burdens. As a result, we were able to increase our operating EBIT margin by 50 basis points year- over- year, 10.5% in such a tough environment. For quarter four, profitability should slightly improve quarter over quarter, well supported by cost measures and a good aftermarket development with a foundation of stable markets in Europe and North America. Overall, we are confident to further fight ongoing market challenges with our long-term boost program, as well as our short-term measures in North America, our robust pricing, and our resilient aftermarket business.
On a full-year basis, CVS should be able to reach an operating EBIT margin around the same level as last year. With that, I hand over to Marc again.
Thank you, Frank. Let's have a look on our guidance for 2024 from slide 11. To make it very short and crisp, we basically confirm all KPIs and all guidance shown on the chart. It's just another three months to go. Please bear in mind, however, that due to the stronger euro and the weaker truck market in North America, the lower end of our revenue guidance is more likely to be achieved. The countermeasures are having a positive effect on the other side on the EBIT margin outlook, meaning that the midpoint represents a very, very realistic expectation. Free cash flow is also being affected by the strong euro, but we are also comfortable to reach the midpoint, at least, of guidance. Having said so, we are ready for the next year to go.
We had a very, very busy year 2025, and we are very confident that our self-healing activities, which had an impact of a reduction of workforce, for example, only in trucks from 15,000 over the last 18 months to now 12,000 people, we are ready for the lift of next year. The 10%-10.5%, which we are aiming for the year 2025, compared to the results of the years in 2023 and 2024, have a much higher value because we are ready to go for the next year based on a much better fixed cost base. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press nine and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, press three and star on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Sven Weier UBS. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes, good afternoon. It's Sven from UBS. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question is around, in the past couple of years, you've always given kind of indications for the year ahead. You didn't do this this time. Is the reason because you feel quite happy with where consensus sits, or do you refer that simply to lack of visibility that you have, especially on the truck side? That's the first question. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Sven. In the past years, there have been mixed feedbacks to us giving an outlook already in October for the next year's numbers, saying, "Why are we doing this?" Others have been highly appreciating it. This time around, we decided not to do it. Why? Because, as you rightfully said, we're totally fine with where the consensus currently sits for next year, I would say. This is it. Of course, markets are also a bit less predictable these days, especially when it comes to the truck market, I would say, and especially the region of North America. That's the answer to it, Sven.
Thank you, Frank. It's fair to say that when I look at current consensus, probably the risk is more on the downside on truck, but maybe on the upside on rail. That could be a bit of a wash from today's point of view, at least.
Yeah. Nothing to add, Sven.
Thanks.
Good.
The follow-up, if I may, is just on truck margins, right? I mean, we'll be around 10.5%, and I guess it's probably fair to say that reaching the 13.5% next year is really tough, to say the least, but we know that, of course. I just wonder, I mean, how prepared and how far are you ready to go to reach that target within the foreseeable future, let's say, in terms of additional measures that you take? I mean, you talked about this in the past, right, where I think there are still some very obvious areas such as R&D, which still seems extremely high for the truck business and the way it performs at the moment, but at the same time, it also seems a bit of a no-go zone for me. So are there any sacred cows in terms of your willingness to achieve the target? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Sven. Let me put this a bit into a broader perspective. When we gave the midterm guidance from three years ago, obviously, the market assumptions, even though we were not at all anyhow aggressive looking at the markets because we always wanted to make it kind of a self-help story at all, were significantly different, especially when it comes to the U.S., but also when it comes to Europe. The market expectations at the end were based on 22 levels, and so that was the starting point to it. We feel totally fine with the long-term view on truck that a margin of 13.5% is definitely not out of reach and is a targeted number that we have on the plate if the market turns out to be more favorable than it is today.
Given the current situation, look at the quarter three alone, the U.S. is - 28% in truck production rate. We only declined 13% in revenues, I think a great sign of resilience. With all those measures that also Marc mentioned, with our adjustment of the current fixed cost structure that we're doing under BOOST, plus the footprint reallocation going into the strategic future, where we're also touching quite a lot of global footprint facilities, we are right on track, I think, with a weaker market to achieve around 12% of return. As a first step, I would see us moving up from this 10.5% levels with a disastrous market, with better fixed cost structure into a world of the shellfish, and then strategically into about 13% return level.
I also mentioned to you many times, Sven, that maybe the 15% that we had at the all-time high one or two years that CVS is maybe not achievable anymore, but the 13.5% is strategically a perfect fit for the profitability target of this company. R&D, let me remind us all, is not a no-touch area for us. Yeah, we had a certain range of products that hit the market recently and are still going to hit the market. We have a certain time where we have high R&D spendings, but we have also told you that going into the future, we see our 6%-7% range of R&D for the group, rather to go down to the lower end of that range towards the fixed fish number over time.
We're heavily working on prioritizing our R&D, but we will not be pennywise, pound foolish and spoil our future by cutting some of the R&D costs in innovation and customization for our customers.
Did I understand this correctly, Frank, that with the measures that you have put in place now, and even without the market really recovering, you could go from 10.5% to 12%, and then the rest will come from a market recovery? That's the fair summary, or?
This is, in a nutshell, a fair summary.
Okay. Understood. Thank you, Frank.
You're welcome, Sven.
The next question is from Akash Gupta , JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes, hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for your time. I have a couple of questions on M&A that you announced in the last couple of quarters. The first one is on this TRAVIS Road Services, which is quite an exciting area to extend into. The question I have is, if you talk about the synergies with the rest of the portfolio, can this allow you to accelerate your aftermarket spare parts revenue, or the rationale to acquire this company was purely based on an ecosystem that you have in you with expertise that may help growing this business? That's the first one.
Going into the services in a stagnating market, as the truck industry is, is also following the digitalization of the industry. The more we are setting up now a platform, which is now fulfilling most of the end customer's requirements, is for us a massive access point to future and current profit sources. This market is completely different in their business psychologic and also in the logic. Here, managing mobility as a service is more and more in the upfront to do. The insurance of making assets working and the truck as an asset is more than nothing less. That is something where we are more investigating in the future. With our first step in 2022, with Cojali, we stepped into this business. Why did we do that?
It was one part of that was, of course, to make sure that our parts can deliver to the customer, but this is a multi-brand. In fact, the brand is not relevant. It's a service to end customers, and that makes us a much, much wider scope and gives us a mightier access to profit sources which currently were not reachable. To make it very short, whether this has done a break path from Knorr-Bremse or not, for this kind of businesses and services, it's not that relevant. It's a side effect. More practice, as you know, and platforms, the more you can cover with a platform, especially in this it is directed to the customer, the more you have a control, the more you have access to profit sources which were far were not reachable for us.
What I mean with that, we are now currently having with this acquisition a real decisive part in our chain of pearls. The chain of pearls is 12-14 buckets, and now we are covering with this acquisition 12-14 buckets. There is one more to come, and that is exactly what we are now targeting in the next two months to come. Then we would be the only one in the market who is covering it from A to Z, from number one to number 14, which is extremely exciting because that gives us a completely different picture on the truck business.
Thank you. My follow-up is on the acquisition of duagon's electronic business. I think one thing which caught my eye was that you are giving 2026 revenues and margin. Normally, either we get this year's expectation or previous year reported. Maybe if you can talk about what sort of growth we are expecting in this business, and if the business doesn't reach to EUR 175 million revenues next year, would there be an implication on selling prices? The background of this question is that in Knorr, we have seen in the past that the company, on assets with some projection that didn't materialize. What sort of safety net do you have this time around?
I would ask you for one thing in terms of fairness, Mr. Gupta. You take the acquisitions before 2022, and you take the acquisitions after 2022. When you give me any evidence of failing our predictions in any form of acquisition which we have done after 2022, I'm very happy to discuss it with you. For the acquisitions before 2022, I do not take any form of responsibility. Of course, I can explain to you endlessly that a lot of these investments were not leading anywhere but to, I would say, diluted business. In Cojali, we bought a company which is completely exceeding. We bought it for a company value of roughly 400 . Now we have an estimate of over 1 billion. That is a fact, and then we can give you the numbers for that.
The next acquisition which we did was one with KB Signaling in the rail business, and this business was coming out so far extremely positive. It came out extremely positive in EBIT margin, and it came out also extremely positive in terms of revenue. All our predictions were even overrun. Now the last acquisition was the duagon and also the TRAVIS. In the duagon, we are very, very comfortable that we are targeting the 16% because this business is also very, how do you say, taking into place what we are already having with Selectron and also KB Signaling. It's a perfect fit. It's additional. It's not a new adventure. In fact, it's like a mosaic that we are starting now putting the pieces together to a one picture.
Having said so, we are very, very absolutely convinced that with duagon, we have another asset in the class of KB Signaling, what we did last year, and we are very confident that the numbers which we have here now are seen are absolutely realistic. I would even say they're conservative. You can see the business is already generating a very, very reasonable, very healthy profit line. Then coming to your question, which was a little bit provocative, when you compare that with all the acquisitions done before 2022, none of these businesses had a real profitability proven in the past. In duagon, we have a profitability record, and we have also a return record, which is proven. Now it is on us to make it into listed.
Thank you.
The growth record. We also have a growth record, which we expect to be close to double-digit.
I think for Akash, it is more important, the profitability than only the growth. Growth without profit is not meaningless. That is, I think, the main difference. The past was very, very much driven by growth, growth, growth, growth, and the question of profitability was like, "It will come." This is completely different to 2022. We are first ensuring that every form of acquisition has to be agreed to, either immediately, like KB Signaling, or very short-term minded. That means within 12 months-24 months. Anything else is not touched.
Thank you.
The next question is from Vivek M idha, Citi. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you very much, everyone. Good afternoon. Hope you can hear me well. My first question is on CVS. It is in a similar vein to Sven's question, but just looking to better understand the mechanics. You mentioned 15% reduction in the North American CVS workforce and ultimately probably lowering the fixed cost base in that division. Should we think about these layoffs as permanent layoffs? I am interested in understanding how much impact there has been on structural cost savings versus more temporary measures such as furloughs. Can you also understand how the margins can improve when volumes come in? Thank you.
Yeah. Of course, there's always a flexibility that we keep in the plants looking at the normal market times of around, I would say, around 10 in some countries, even more, kind of flex workers, temp workers, what have you, basically in the field of blue collars, not so much on the white collar side, but on the blue collar side, of course, in order to breathe through certain market conditions. That's clear. The 15% that also Marc mentioned does include to some extent also the blue collars, of course, directly affected and indirect workers in the plant areas. The thing is that also on the white collar side, we did more than 10% of cost reductions, and that's directly impacting the fixed costs. That's why this is sustainable, and it's lowering the break-even point quite significantly for the business going into the future.
It is a mixture of both, but it has a sustainable effect because the white collar reduction had a similar dimension like the blue collar reductions.
I would like to add to Frank's comments. The company is always quoted to have 32,500 people employed. This is not the case. We have currently 30,520 people employed. The target is very clear. Whatever happens to the revenues, whatever happens to anything else, this number has to go down. Because for the last 22 years, the revenue per employee was not moving up. I have never seen this in my life, and this is exactly why we are addressing it. It has to move up in terms of truck of EUR 300,000, and it has to move up to EUR 250,000-EUR 260,000 for RVS. There is a difference in the structure. This is explaining why there is a difference.
So far, we are below these numbers. That means as long as we have not reached these numbers, there will be no longer a substantial buildup of workforce, whatever the revenue is bringing or not. We have a very clear target and very clearly aligned. We want to reduce, number one, the break-even. This is very clear. This is not for discussion. Whether the market is up or down, the break-even has to be targeted, number one. In the last years, we had a break-even in derailment, I would say, for the last 24 months. We are really pressurizing down this kind of break-even. What is the most important part of this break-even? By 60%-70% is the personal expenses. The personal expenses were highest in 2024. Even the numbers were fine, but this was not even noticed by others. We have noticed it.
We have to bring down the personnel expenses significantly in truck. We had reached a number which was close to 22% . Now, by the last months, we are in the reach of 90%, and the target is to be below 20%. In terms of RVS, we have reached a number exceeding 27.5% personnel expenses cost, and that has to be brought down to 25%. With that, we will improve significantly our break-even, and with that, we will be more and more independent from the ups and downs of the market. As you rightly described it, the self-healing has to be done, and it has to be proceeded. To your question, do we have to then expect when the market is going up to see significant upscaling of workforce? The answer is clear: no way.
Number two on this is we are now starting an AI campaign and initiative. We are exactly the white collars I addressed. Yes, and we want to do repetitive work more and more by digital AI agents. That is exactly what we started with our initiative, where we have now settled the first start in Chennai, where we are focusing AI experts to bring us substantial and also long-term lasting solutions to make sure that for repetitive work, we are not hiring people. In short words, no, we are not estimating to have hired people. Second, we are breaking down absolutely our break-even, and we have very clear targets and very clear KPIs how to lead them.
Very understood. Thank you. My second question is a bit of a mid-long-term question around RVS. You've done a 17% margin in the third quarter and guiding for a similar margin in the fourth quarter. That's above your midterm target for the division. So my question, very broad, is where next do you see for the division over the midterm and long-term? Appreciate you. Maybe once you give a fuller answer to this at some point in the future, but I'm just using some early thoughts. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Vivek. I mean, I would refer a bit, of course, to the question or the answer to the question of Sven. We're totally fine with the consensus as it stands for next year. There, the margin is on that level or even slightly above the 17%. This is, I think, a number that's totally fine for the rail division. This is, as we also said quite a few times, not the end. We have plenty of measures in place. I'm already starting to implement also strategic, as I said before, footprint reorganizations so that a margin beyond the 17%, 18% is reachable. For the rail division, we are aiming strategically to go towards 19%. Somehow, this is the idea of the business, and that should post very great profitable growth for this business.
Thank you very much.
Now it's out. You also said so before, I think.
Okay. The next question comes from William Mackie from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Marc, Frank. Thank you for the time. My first question, Marc, to you really is to go back to the M&A that you've undertaken around service and the efforts to expand specifically in CVS. I just wonder if you can talk a little to how the development of competitive tension evolves as you push into the aftermarket in the heavy truck industry. That's somewhere, I guess, many of the OEMs, as you well know from your past lives, are also looking to expand and capture value. How does that balance evolve in your mind between the existing installed base, supporting it, capturing the data, and leveraging that for your benefit rather than and avoiding too much competition with your OEMs? The more simple question is that you have an exceptionally strong balance sheet and great cash performance.
Looking forward, you've talked to capital allocation and guardrails, but just a little bit more flavor on how you see the pipeline evolving and where you can enhance your string of pearls to strengthen the business.
Okay. I come with number two first because it's not limited to CVS when I speak about potential acquisition candidates in the near future. As you can imagine, we started with brownfields. Yeah, BOOST was mainly brownfield, help yourself, and you will be helped. That's what we have done. We are on our way. By the way, BOOST is not finished by next year. BOOST is a continuous improvement process and program now, which will last for years to come. This is why I made so much emphasis on the break-even, on the personal expenses, on the ratios. This has to go through now with everybody. Yeah. Coming to the pearls, the platform business itself has one very important criteria. It has to be brand independent. The more you are captive, the more you limit your brand, you limit also your platform and your reach.
What we do now together with Cojali and TRAVIS and also with the other things to come, by the way, all of them will not exceed the range you have seen so far. There will be mid-size to small-size cap, but it is more to capture and to occupy the place than to say, "Oh, I have already the tickets in this array." Here, the problem or the competition for the captives like our customers, they are very, very centered around their brand. For them, it is nearly impossible to have a multi-brand approach. Multi-brand approach makes us independent, and this is why I said it's not important only to sell our parts and our brake discs via this channel. For us, it's more important to see the movement of everything that is going in this domain.
Here we have an axis now where we are, especially for the second life cycle of trucks. Now, after three years, the warranty is over, and then 70%-75% of the customers are leaving the captive service facilities. This is not only in Europe; this is also in America. They are going to independent dealerships, and these independent dealerships have one strength. Their strength is they are flexible, they are agile, and especially they are not spend dependent. This is where we are stepping in. We are not really going into competition with our customers and clients in the first three years. We are going more for the last seven years, which is what normally lasts in Europe or in America.
It's eight years more, so in together, it's between 11 and 12 years before we'll be getting through markets which eventually are a little bit different. This kind of span, we are then addressing. This kind of span, we are addressing, and there we know by ourselves that the use take that to take quota for original parts, spare parts, is getting significantly lower than in the first three years. This market is highly interesting, highly competitive, but what we are aiming here is to be like a spider in the net. Whatever you move, we notice, and hopefully, we will participate. I must say, it's a very good—I'm very proud of the team because we came up with that over the last two and a half years.
They have now formed something like a legally platform strategy, which could make us very, very, very profitable in this regard because in this kind of services and platform, we have completely different acquisitions on profitability.
Thank you very much. My follow-up relates to the CVS business. Congratulations on the continual evidence of the strong muscle memory and cutting costs at Knorr-Bremse in CVS in the face of weaker markets. Notice the gross margins were relatively flat year on year, actually. My question goes to the general pricing environment for CVS, specifically in North America. In a market where you've seen falling volumes, how effective have the teams been in passing through prices to mitigate cost-related headwinds from tariffs or other factors, or just to be able to maintain the underlying gross profitability? Thank you.
The American team is very close to the market. The American team is, by the way, even more agile when it comes to swings. To lay off PayPal is much, much faster. It is much more efficient than we see here in Europe, especially in Germany. We are closer to the customer, much closer. In America, we have a customer which is also very, very much involved into after-sales business, and that is in this regard specifically to car. What we see is that we are very close in cooperation with our customers here. They understand when we have to increase the prices, and they understand also the pressure we are running through and going through. One thing is for sure: the North American truck market is by far the most profitable market in the world. The American market is a protected market.
That has to be very clearly mentioned. You do not see there a lot of agents really coming in. The market itself is very settled, saturated, and also allocated. You have players. You do not have new players. Here, it is very clear that it is a very mature market with extremely interesting margins. The European market is more competitive with much lower margins to have. Yeah, the margins here are roughly on average below 400 basis points below, not only for the OES but also for the OEMs. The truck market in Asia is completely different, highly competitive, very low margin, and very difficult to have a leading position to be defended because there is always a new player who is attacking you. Our focus in terms of profitability is very, very clear in the North American market. It is very, very clear also in the European market.
For expansion in terms of only in growth, now also in technology trying out, that is the Asian market itself. You know it also by the content potential, which is a fraction in China to North America. It's a fraction. Everything that in America and Europe is coming up with digitalization and any form of redundant systems, safety systems, that is the market where we are in. It is playing in our favor because here we can't be replaced easily. Here we are not just a commodity. Here we are a differentiating factor. That is what plays in our cards in these two markets, and which makes us very, very learning in the Asian market. Long story short, the team is very ready to go with that. They're very qualified. We have very technical, instrumented, and technical-based salespeople.
That means they're not just salespeople on the commercial side but mainly also on the technical side. We have a good differentiation to our competitors, and we are seen also as a leading force here when it comes to market innovations.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Ben Uglow, OxCap . Have a quick question.
Yeah. Hi, guys. I hope all are well. I had a couple. First of all, on the RVS margin improvement, the one percentage point, I mean, historically, that is a very big number, a big gain. I guess my question is, maybe could you give us a bit more detail of what's in that 1 percentage point? How much of this is simply just due to OE and aftermarket type mix? Is there any significant regional variation in there, i.e., have we seen one region doing better? The reason, obviously, why I mentioned this is in the past, China margins were higher, et cetera. I just wanted to understand the basis for that improvement.
To hear you again, Ben. Thank you. I missed the beginning maybe. The 100 baseline you talk about, right, the concentration of the things.
Yeah.
Clear. I mean, I would say a regional difference is China is stable as expected, rather a bit of operating leverage, so to say, with a bit of headwinds on FX side. So it's China driving it. Europe has gained both and operating leverage, and North America supported by signaling. This is from a regional view, it. All that in Europe and North America basically being positive, a bit of a weakness on the rail freight side in North America, which goes hand in hand with what we see in the truck market in North America. That's it, how I see it from a regional point of view.
Of course, aftermarket share, which is the big when it comes to the sales channel mix, has supported us in that improvement of profitability. We are now running at a level of around 55% of aftermarket share globally, which is an improvement compared to last year. That is a good driver. The third element is the continuous BOOST measures that we are implementing more and more. Those three drivers are basically the bit of competitive America, Europe, aftermarket, and because of measures.
Understood. That's helpful. Thank you, Frank . I guess question for Marc. Trying to sort of understand what's going on in the North American truck market at the moment is extremely difficult. A lot of companies are making all kinds of different statements, I would say. In terms of your customer conversations, in terms of your kind of day-to-day dialogue with truck OEMs, how would you characterize those conversations over the last sort of couple of months? Is it just getting better? Sorry. Is it just getting worse? Or are things even changing at the margin? The reason why I ask this is different companies are talking about a better line of sight on tariffs. Some companies are even talking about EPA 2027. I wanted to know from your point of view, how are those conversations?
Obviously, it's a normalization. Most of our customers are very conservative, as you can imagine. They supported the current government massively. Some of them even paid. After they were enthusiastic in the first two months of this year, there came a certain form of irritation for another four months till August. Now we are in a phase of frustration, and frustration in the sense of standby. Nobody wants to move. Nobody wants to make a mistake. For example, this morning, we have been informed that Mr. Xi Jinping and Mr. Trump came to a conclusion when it comes to rare earth. This came for all of us a little bit by surprise. The market has developed already this week based on that. On Saturday, we had the first signals that they come.
Exactly 10 days before, we had in the press and also the capital markets was predicting a massive friction between the superpowers. This kind of erratic or non-predictable movements lead in the truck industry to standby. They won't cut. They won't increase. They will just wait. The consumer confidence will be for them eventually more important. Container traffic will be. Freight movement will be more important. Currently, we see not only the trucks hammered by that, but also the freight trains. We see that this is an impact on both industries, not only on the one industry. We would say the worst is behind us because uncertainty is even worse than bad news. You know this better than me. The uncertainty is now, I would say the fog is clearing up, and that's we could imagine, but they are not paying on that. Don't get me wrong.
We are prepared for it, but not paying on that. That we can eventually see in the next quarters to come a massive release and a massive improvement on the sentiment. We are very confident to see this massive because someone wants to be in the midterms. We know the midterms next year in November, and we know the economy is stupid, and we know this has to run, and everybody will do everything to make it run in America. We are a little bit more confident than we have been eventually in August.
That's super helpful.
In addition, from my side, Ben, also looking at the interest rates, I think the right signals are currently being set. Talking to the fleet customers directly, our fleet guys, of course, on a daily basis, they are also saying, "Okay, whatever the kind of age might be and whatever the right theoretical point towards a new buy of a truck would be, if I do not have money, it is too costly for me to borrow money." I think this is also the right signal that this may be currently sending towards any recovery.
That's great. Super helpful. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Gael de-Bray , Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.
Oh, thank you. Good afternoon. I have two questions, please, two of them relating to RVS. The first one is on the share of aftermarket, which apparently dropped in Q3 pretty substantially compared to H1, 50% or so in Q3 versus 57% in the first half. It appears that there's been a big sequential decrease in aftermarket revenues in RVS in Q3. I guess my question is, what's been driving this? The second question is around the growth dynamics in broader terms for RVS. I mean, RVS has enjoyed very strong commercial dynamics with orders continuously surprising on the upside over the past few quarters, even over the last couple of years now. However, at the same time, RVS revenue growth has come a bit short of expectations this year with Q3. I mean, this was again the case this quarter.
Could you elaborate on the lead times and whether one could expect to see finalism acceleration in organic revenue growth next year? Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome. First, let me start with the aftermarket. I mean, the bigger chunk there in the first and second quarter driven by also some signaling replacements and aftermarket growth momentum that we have seen. If I'm not mistaken, it was you, Gael, who asked me the questions at the quarter two call why the signaling business is so strong in profitability. It was rather a bit of exceptionally high in quarter one and quarter two, that aftermarket share driven by the signaling business. Where I said already in July, it will come down naturally, not sustainably, but naturally come down in the second half of the year 2025. That is the reason. Number one question, maybe signaling major driver to it with exceptional situation for the one quarter two.
Second question, rail demand going forward, as Marc also said right in the beginning, is the least issue that we are currently seeing. We have in plenty of jurisdictions support programs out there fueling the demand quite sustainably. One trillion package in the U.S., the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We have the German stimulus program. We have Brazil investing $15 billion, Italy $25 billion over the years to come, Egypt, Turkey, what have you. All these, so to say, programs leading to the fueling of the market growth that we kind of see between 2%-3% basis should be going up with all those programs above those numbers. We are totally fine, so to say, to reach our 5%-7%, let me put it this way, CAGR of organic growth for the rail business over the years to come.
By the way, this is not a different number from what we said three years ago as the situation in rail is non-cyclical. We see back then it is 6%-7% over several years. One year it is 10%, the next it is maybe 4%, then it is 7%. Something around that is what we see. The lead time, second element of your second question, is very different. I mean, it depends on the product itself that we are selling. Ultimately, a brake system, you would have at least when the design phase is finalized, you have a lead time of 12 months-18 months for more sophisticated products like a brake system, brake control unit. When it comes to a door system, it is after the design phase, kind of six to nine, maybe 12 months, six to 12, let us put it this way.
Towards a more simple product, HVAC system, it is three to six months. It takes always the design phase of the train. Then at these additional lead times, this is what we are looking at on a regular basis. Sometimes you have also project push-outs from one or the other customers. This is then a bit of irregularity in the market. In a normal market, I would say those are the lead times. With that, all the books that we are having will show a, please, so to say, that we could not even afford much more order intake in order to get them all, so to say, produced within the next 12 months. We are, I would say, fully booked, basically.
Understood. Thank you very much.
You're welcome, Gael.
The last question is from Tore Fangmann from Bank of America. Please bear with the question.
Perfect. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Just one last from my side. When we looked into the truck market, I think a few of the OEMs had now opened up 2026 from September onwards. Could you just give us any indication on how your discussions with the truck OEMs are going right now and any first idea of how this would lean into the start the Q1 or Q2 of 2026?
Thanks, Tore. Nothing spectacular, I would say. Sometimes it's what I recall since quite some time that after summer break, internal news in big corporations flow a bit hesitant at first. Then towards October-November, basically the sales guys come up with rather bad news, so to say, towards their supervisors. This is what we usually say. That's why we also said we see a bit of a softening in Europe for some orders in the EDI system. If you only have two more months to go, you rather shift into the new year into January and February. You realize you can't get them done in December anymore. This is coming like a surprise, kind of. You shift the orders into February. That's the usual thing that happens basically each and every year.
We do not see anything special this time around. I think we have to, in North America, see how many days around Thanksgiving the plants on the customer side will be closed down and what they do with Christmas break. As we also said, we expect a rather flattish market quarter four compared to quarter three, maybe a tiny little bit less truck production rate there. Nothing spectacular in the discussions with our customers. What we see is what PACCAR and Volvo announced, I think, is pretty straightforward. Nothing more to add on our side.
Yeah. Just to add from my side, for the capital markets, relevant whether we perform or not. We are performing exactly to what we predicted. We performed in 2024 to our predictions and announcements. We perform now to our predictions and announcements in 2025. Now give me a reason why should you not believe that we are performing exactly as we planned it for 2026 with 14+% EBIT margin. I would not see it because the pattern currently is, in my words, more gravity than anything else. I do not see the doubt. Whether the truck is with currently 44% of revenue share, whether this is now coming up or not, as I said at the beginning, I do not believe in dependence of markets. I believe in your own abilities to play with the market.
It is more important whether your costs are under control and whether the market is going up by 2% or going down by 3%. It is our absolute obligation that for next year, the 40% has to be achieved. We are doing everything on the cost situation and what we can address. What we cannot address, we cannot address. We can hope. For markets, you can only hope. The cost, you can do. What we do is we do what we do. For the last, whatever it was, 16 months, we did it. We did it as predicted. We did it as announced. Now you can say, "Yeah, but what makes us think that in the next 11 quarters or 12 quarters, you will do what you announced?" Sorry to say, I can only offer you the past.
For the last 12 quarters, we did always over-fulfilled what we announced. I can give you absolute clarity. Our understanding and our obligation is to do the same in the next year and the same as in the fourth quarter. Whether the market is bad or good, sorry to say, as is, we will not have an excuse. We have to overcompensate. If left is going wrong and right is going right, we have to overcompensate it because overall, the result is 13% we wanted to reach in 2025. This is what to go for, 14%+ , that is the target for 2026. That is what to go for. Whether the market is good or bad, no excuse. We have to reach it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for your time. If you have any questions, please reach out. Yeah, we wish you a great afternoon. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Bye.