Welcome to Hiab's Full Year 2025 Results Call. My name is Aki Vesikallio. I'm from Investor Relations. Today's results will be presented by CEO, Scott Phillips, and CFO, Mikko Puolakka. As a reminder, please pay attention to the disclaimer in the presentation, as we will be making forward-looking statements. Before handing over to Scott and Mikko, let's take a quick look at the highlights of the year. Market environment was characterized by increased trade tensions and uncertainties, and our orders received remained at past two years' level. Sales declined by 6%, but we increased our comparable operating profit margin and achieved a new record of 13.7%. Also, our services business had a record year. Strong cash generation continued, and we acquired ING Cranes, significantly expanding our presence in Brazil. Let's then view today's agenda. First, Scott will present the group-level topics and strategic development.
Mikko will go through the reporting segments, financials in more detail, and the outlook. After Mikko, Scott will join the stage for key takeaways before the Q&A session. With that, over to you, Scott.
Thank you, Aki. And good morning, everyone, from my side. So starting first with the demand environment, I'd characterize the full year situation as our orders remaining on a similar level to the prior two years. As you can see visually on the left-hand side of the slide, the last three years were quite on a similar level, and we've talked about the demand environment that's led to that. Drawing your attention a bit more to the right-hand side of the slide, going into the numbers, first starting with comparing quarter versus quarter.
Orders received for the quarter last year were EUR 375 million, or in 2025, EUR 375 million, versus prior year, EUR 414 million, for a 9% change in actual exchange rates, 6% change in constant currencies. And for the full year, orders received were EUR 1.48 billion, versus prior year, EUR 1.509 billion, or a 2% change in actual exchange rates and essentially flat in constant currencies. As a consequence, our order book has decreased to EUR 534 million, ending 2025, versus EUR 648 million in 2024. So a decrease of EUR 114 million or 18%. So summarizing the overall environment, relatively stable and on a similar level in constant currencies.
The decrease was primarily from our delivery equipment orders in the U.S. in 2025, somewhat offset by increases in our lifting equipment in Europe and APAC, and other parts of the Americas, and an increase overall in our services business. So in summary, our overall order book decreased only in equipment, and not in services business. So looking in more detail within the regional perspective, starting on the left-hand side of the slide, our orders received for last year, or for 2025, were 54% in EMEA, 39% in the Americas, and 8% in APAC. On a quarterly basis, looking into the numbers, that translated into EUR 208 million in fourth quarter in EMEA, versus EUR 218 million in the comparable period, or a 5% decline.
However, for the full year, EMEA order intake was EUR 794 million versus 2024, EUR 736 million, or an 8% increase. In the Americas, however, we saw a decline in fourth quarter to EUR 137 million versus the prior year of EUR 164 million, or a 16% decline. A bit more acute in the U.S., and I'll provide a bit more color on that in a second. For the full year, total order intake was EUR 572 million in the Americas versus prior, 668, or 14% decline. In Asia Pacific, we saw a slight decline in the comparison period on a quarterly basis at EUR 30 million versus EUR 32 million in the prior year, a 5% decline.
However, for the full year, there we saw a 10% increase to EUR 114 million versus EUR 104 million in the comparison period. Now, summarizing the operating environment, we saw a gradual recovery if you look at it on the full year basis in both EMEA and APAC. However, in the U.S., we continue to see soft demand, however, on a relatively stable level, if you think about the last three quarters. Now, why is that? The main reason, of course, are the trade tensions that elevated the level of uncertainty in the demand environment, in particular in the U.S. That led to our customers being quite cautious, and especially, shows up in our results as we are a short-cycle business in both our equipment and services.
Now, looking into our sales for the full year, as you see on the left-hand side of the slide, we had a decline sequentially from 2024 to EUR 1.556 billion or a 6% decline in actual exchange rates, 4% decline in constant currencies. Looking into the quarter, our sales was EUR 396 million versus EUR 412 million, or a 4% decline in actual exchange rates, relatively flat in terms of constant currencies. And our share of services in the quarter was 29%, same level that it was the prior year. However, for the full year, our services as percent of sales was 30%, so up two percentage points versus the comparison period.
Now, in summarizing the overall revenue environment, clearly our sales in the second half were lower than the first half by 9%. Currencies had an impact on the results by 2 percentage points, in the negative direction on a full year basis. And as I mentioned earlier, our share of services sales increased from 28%-30%. Now, looking, more deeply on a regional basis in terms of the sales environment for 2025, EMEA represented 50% of our overall sales, the Americas 44%, APAC 7%. And on a quarterly basis, EMEA was EUR 212 million, up 3% in the comparison versus comparison period.
In the Americas, however, we were down 14% versus comparison period, EUR 154 million, and in APAC, we were up slightly, or by 8%, EUR 30 million versus EUR 28 million in the comparison period. And really pleased to report that our Eco Portfolio sales, as a percentage, and in absolute terms, increased nicely year over year to EUR 135 million or 34% of sales. And then on a full year basis, looking at, starting with the EMEA region, full year sales were down slightly 2%, 785 versus EUR 804 million . In the Americas, we were down 10% in revenue, 662 versus EUR 735 million, and in APAC, EUR 110 million versus 108, or up 1%.
Eco Portfolio sales for the full year in absolute terms, up to EUR 572 million versus EUR 476 million, or 20% positive variance, and on a percentage basis, increased from 29%-37%. Summarizing the regional environment, our Americas sales decline came wholly from the U.S., somewhat offset by growth in other regions or other markets within the region. In EMEA, our sales declined slightly in the full year, but grew towards the end of the year. We started to convert the uptick in the order intake from the first half of the year as we moved into the end of the year last year. Our Asia-Pacific sales increased nicely, and then, as I mentioned earlier, Eco Portfolio sales increased, and our circular solutions decreased somewhat in our climate solutions .
Now, looking into how our sales translated into profitability, as you can see on the visual on the left-hand side of the slide, the slope continues to be nicely positive in the prior three-year period of time, and that's of course, despite the fact that we have a lower sales level year-over-year from 2024 - 2025. Looking at it in more detail, starting with the quarterly view, our comparable operating profit was EUR 47 million versus the comparison period of EUR 41 million. Mikko will go into more details in terms of what that variance means, but it's a 15% positive variance quarter-over-quarter. On a full year basis, our comparable operating profit was EUR 213 million versus 2024's 217, so a 2% negative variance.
But in relative terms, we had a nice 50 basis points improvement from 2025 - 2024, to 13.7% versus 13.2%, which translated nicely into an improvement in our return on capital employed, looking at it on a last twelve-month basis at 30.8% versus 28.2% in the prior year. So our full year profitability in quarter four was burdened significantly by lower U.S. equipment sales. However, it was somewhat offset by, looking at it on a total basis, a nice 100 basis points improvement in our gross profit margin. So a nice example of executing in our strategy.
At the same time, as we had communicated previously, we were targeting lower SG&A costs, so that somewhat offset the decline in the top line, all of which translated nicely into improving our return on capital employed, and largely driven by a nice reduction in our net working capital that we continue to execute. Now, speaking of how the strategy is developing, I thought I'd transition a bit into how are we doing relative to what we talked about in our Capital Markets Day in 2024. I'll start first with the next step in our evolution of our operating model.
As we've stated earlier, we are quite adamant about driving radical transparency and accountability and operating our business such that we have decision-making and ability to act on behalf of our customers at the point that's closest to impact to our customers. So the next step in our operating model to drive further transparency, accountability, and empowerment, is a change that we're making into our organizational structure at the Hiab leadership team level. So we're streamlining our business from six to five global functions, which we show here. And similarly, we will then evolve our business operations' organizational design to three business areas, is what we're proposing. All of which should be effective as of April 1st, pending the outcome of our labor negotiations.
If we're able to move forward on executing this plan, then the way that the organization will look will be organized into three business areas. Two equipment business areas, Lifting Solutions and Delivery Solutions , one led by Magdalena Wojtowicz. Our Delivery Solutions led by Hermanni Lyyski, and then Michael Bruninx will continue to lead our services business as a business area. Now, we're doing this, as I mentioned earlier, as a logical next step, both to simplify our organizational design and enable us to more effectively add additional business units, divisions, in the future.
At the same time, it's key to our success to, in order to shrink the levels of organization from our colleagues within Hiab that impact our customer outcomes on a day-to-day basis, with those that are located in our product management, sales support, R&D organizations, to bring those constituents closer together so that we can act and react more effectively on behalf of our customers. Either addressing day-to-day problems and opportunities, or allowing seamless communication, being able to understand more deeply our customers' applications and translating those insights into the next generation solutions. By aligning our sales end-to-end with our business areas, we think that will significantly drive further accountability to the overall result in terms of customer experience, financial outcomes, and our own employee experience.
As I mentioned earlier, we think this organizational design will allow us to be much more agile and adapt to changes in our business in the future. So we think this is the key enabler to continue to drive the successful execution of our strategy and ensure long-term success. Now, just to give you a bit of color on the cost savings program that we announced previously with our Q3 results. As previously communicated, we target approximately EUR 20 million of cost savings within the year, coming primarily from two vectors. On the one hand, the most significant piece of the cost savings that we are targeting will be personnel-related cost. Unfortunately, as a consequence, that could result in as many as 480 roles reduction globally.
And then at the same time, we have a number of non-personnel related activities that we plan to undertake that will also deliver cost savings according to our plan. All told, we estimate that our planned one-off cost would be approximately EUR 30 million. This will be reflected in items affecting comparability and, of course, certainly subject to change as we complete the negotiation and the planning process and move into implementation. Concurrent with this action is a next step in executing on our supply chain strategy. So we announced that we would plan to change our the Zepro tail lift assembly. The change would involve reducing and closing the operation in Bispgården, in Sweden, transferring the work to our facility in Stargard, Poland. And the rationale here is pretty straightforward.
We hope that we can improve efficiency, better leverage the facility that we have in Stargard, help ensure and secure competitiveness of the brand by reducing our bill of material cost, which should be a key enabler to driving future growth within this important brand, within our overall Hiab portfolio. So we think these are necessary actions, both in terms of executing the strategy as well as reacting to the declining order book. As we previously communicated, the rationale to continue to reinforce and build our credibility on delivering a good track record of results and continue to focus on value creation despite the level of, or despite the top-line development. Now, looking further into a few additional insights on how our strategy execution is going.
I'll start first with, on the left-hand side, really proud to announce that we've recently signed two new dealers in the U.S. in line with our strategy we communicated in 2024. Recently, we announced that we had closed and signed agreements with MGX, a subsidiary of Manitowoc, as well as Custom Truck One Source. Now, this brings us up to 16 new dealers that we've signed since we first announced this piece of the strategy in terms of growth in North America. And this brings us quite close to having now full coverage in the U.S., especially for our Hiab loader crane business, and we're inching closer and getting full coverage as well in our critical delivery solution businesses as well. So really pleased with this development.
Proud of the work that the team has done on behalf of achieving this critical objective in our strategy, both in the U.S. as well as here in Europe. The second piece that I'd like, I'm very proud to report is that we now have achieved a critical milestone. We're over 25,000 service contracts. As you'll recall, in 2024, we communicated we were targeting to be above 50,000 by the end of 2028, so we're nicely on track, and this is a critical element for us in order to ensure that we can continue to drive improvements in terms of our capture rates, and that's critical to our parts and other recurring revenue business within our services business area to be. At the same time, we also talked about another key data point.
We were targeting to be above 90,000 units connected by the end of 2028, and we're now on a level of 56,000 units connected, so well on track on those two critical elements of the service growth strategy. And then finally, on this particular slide, I'll end on highlighting that we did complete a strategic acquisition of ING in Brazil. This is critical to our growth in the Americas strategy, as well as giving us increased coverage and penetration in one of our key segments that we called out as part of the strategy as well, and that was our construction segment. So the combination of ING and Argos, we think, positions us, us quite nicely as complementary portfolios and will enable and catalyze significant growth in that part of the world.
So big, warm welcome to all of our new colleagues from ING to Hiab. Now, just closing and recapping on our strategy. Proud of the work that the team is doing in terms of executing on the strategy. We remain keenly focused on our step-by-step approach to ensure that we are in leading, niche, attractive, end market segments that are quite nicely aligned to essential industries that we learned about during the time of COVID. We seek to be number one or two in each of those exposures in order that we can set the tone in terms of technological superiority and deliver and through that, and backed up with a second-to-none service offering, then we know that's critical to delivering the best customer experience in the industry.
When we talked about how we intended to grow faster than the market, there were three critical pieces to the strategy. One was we had four targeted segments that we seek to grow in, and we're progressing nicely in two or arguably three out of the four segments. We've yet to see the tailwind coming through in construction, but we continue to take steps in order to expand our share into the construction segment. We talked about growing in North America, in particular, through increasing our coverage geographically. And so, as I mentioned earlier, we're now up to 16 new dealers that we've onboarded towards that end. And of course, critical to our success, as well as our customer success, is growing our services business.
Now, at the same time, we also talked about how we would improve profitability, which you see coming through in the results of improved profitability versus declining top line. And so we've talked quite a lot about improving our efficiency through higher business excellence and ensuring that we continue to execute through our decentralized operating model for the reasons that I gave earlier. And then finally, it's important to note that all of which is designed to help enable that we have sustainable industry-leading value creation across the business cycles, and the team is progressing quite nicely according to that plan. Now, what does that look like in terms of the numbers? We are behind in terms of our progress on delivering 7% across the cycle, as we're at 5.5% now after the latest quarter.
We're right on schedule or slightly ahead, even in terms of delivering 16% at 13.7 in the last twelve months. Similarly, we remain nicely ahead of schedule in terms of our return on capital employed, as we remain above 25%, as we have at last twelve months of 30.8%. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mikko.
Thank you, Scott, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen also from my side. Let's first have a look on the equipment segment's performance in quarter four. Equipment segment's financial performance was quite uneven between the lifting and delivery equipment in quarter four. Order intake totaled EUR 258 million . This was -13% year-on-year, but if we clean the currency impact, so 10% down in constant currencies. Delivery equipment orders declined especially in Americas, while then the lifting equipment orders were actually flat year-on-year. So actually quite nice development there. Very much also supported by the European market area. On full year basis, the orders decline came solely from Americas.
We start in equipment business, the year 2022... 2026, with a EUR 140 million lower order book, and to compensate this, we plan to reduce costs by EUR 20 million this year, as Scott described earlier. Equipment sales was EUR 280 million in quarter four. This is a decline of 5% from previous year, or again, - 2% in constant currencies if we clean the, especially the U.S. dollar weakening. In quarter four and on full year basis, the equipment segment comparable operating profit was negatively impacted by the lower sales, especially in the short cycle delivery equipment, and as mentioned earlier, especially in the U.S. market.
Sales in the U.S. was EUR 25 million lower in quarter four than in the comparison period, and this had roughly a EUR 10 million negative impact in the equipment segment profitability in quarter four. We had some non-recurring costs in the operating results, EUR 3 million in quarter four and EUR 10 million for full year. Without these, the comparable operating profit would be 13.4% in quarter four and 13.8% for full year. Equipment segment's profitability, as I mentioned earlier, was negatively impacted by the lower sales in the U.S., and this was partially offset by fixed cost reductions based on that cost savings program, which we announced one year ago.
Lower volumes impacted also the gross profit margin, as certain factory overheads do not scale 100% with the volumes. We had a EUR 1 million negative impact from FX translation effects mainly due to weak U.S. dollar, also as mentioned earlier. And then we had a positive impact coming from basically two elements. Firstly, in quarter four 2024, we had EUR 15 million costs mainly related to the restructuring of our Italian operations. And then secondly, our SG&A costs were lower in the equipment segment due to the cost savings program, which has started in 2024.
So on like-to-like basis, without the previously mentioned non-recurring costs, in quarter four 2025, the comparable operating profit was 13.4%, so on the same level as in 2024, despite the 5% decline in sales. Then on services, so services continued to grow, very much supported by growing the number of connected equipment and service contracts, like Scott highlighted earlier. The weaker U.S. dollar had a significant impact on our services top line. In constant currencies, services quarter four orders would have been EUR 122 million, so up by 4%, and on full year basis, the orders would have been in constant currencies EUR 479 million, up by 7%.
We have seen good growth in recurring services like spare parts and maintenance services, while the installation services declined due to the lower new equipment sales, as you have seen in the previous pages. Services quarter four profitability was impacted by low installation services volumes and a EUR 1 million booking, kind of non-recurring booking to cover the deficit in our self-funded healthcare system in the U.S. On a full year basis, there has been a good development in services profitability, mainly supported by the recurring services growth, and on full year basis, services delivered a record high EUR 109 million comparable operating profit, and this is 23.2% margin. So nice progress in services.
When we look the services profitability bridge, sales in constant currencies contributed positively to profitability. So kind of service volumes were developing well. As mentioned earlier, the recurring services had a positive impact on the growth, while installation services declined. Lower installation services had also a negative impact on gross profit margin because, for example, rents for the installation workshops are fixed. FX translation had a negative impact on services profitability, and as mentioned earlier, stemming very much from the weaker U.S. dollar. As mentioned earlier, we booked EUR 1 million to cover the U.S. healthcare deficit program, and here, basically in the picture, it's illustrated in the other bar on the right side of the bridge.
So without this EUR 1 million services profitability, profitability would have been 22%, in quarter four. Next, let's have a look on Hiab's total financials. So Hiab's quarter four comparable operating profit improved EUR 6 million from the comparison period, despite the 4% decline in sales. Main contribution came from not having similar kind of EUR 15 million non-recurring costs, which there were in quarter four 2024. Here, those non-recurring costs are pictured in the other bar on the right-hand side of the bridge. We have had negative gross profit impact coming from the lower sales in the U.S., as mentioned earlier, and, luckily, this has been partially also offset by growing revenues in EMEA and APAC, as also illustrated earlier.
Our quarter four operating profit included EUR 5 million items affecting comparability, and these are mainly related to the planning of the EUR 20 million restructuring program for this year. The tax rate for the full year was developing favorably. It was 25%, versus 27% in 2024. And our net profit was EUR 33 million for quarter four, and then EUR 151 million for full year. Our cash generation continued on a good level, also in quarter four, amounting to EUR 56 million. EBITDA contributed EUR 53 million to cash flow, and then we released EUR 27 million from inventory in quarter four, while on the other hand, the accounts receivables increased from quarter three due to higher invoicing in the latter part of the year.
Full-year cash flow from operations was EUR 308 million, so really strong performance from the whole organization. Hiab has a very, very strong balance sheet to support the strategic priorities, like organic and inorganic growth. Our net cash declined from quarter three. Here, basically, the main driver is the EUR 100 million additional dividend, which was paid in October 2025. ING acquisition did not impact the net cash position, as the transaction was closed in January 2026. On the debt side, we have basically one major bond, EUR 150 million, that's maturing in November 2026, and basically, the rest of our interest-bearing liabilities are mostly IFRS 16 lease liabilities.
Hiab's board of directors is proposing a 50% dividend payout for the annual general meeting in March according basically to the maximum of our dividend policy. This dividend proposal would be EUR 1.17 per B share, and the total dividend payout would be EUR 75 million. Dividend payment date would be April 2nd, 2026. We have provided an outlook for 2026, and this outlook is basically based on few key assumptions, and let me elaborate some of those. As Scott indicated earlier, there has been gradual recovery in EMEA and in APAC. However, the U.S. demand is still uncertain that has remained stable during the last three quarters. Trade tensions are still expected to cause uncertainty around customers' investment decisions.
Our last twelve months rolling order intake has been on EUR 1.5 billion level, and we start the year 2026 with EUR 114 million lower order book compared to 2025. Our outlook incorporates the planned earlier mentioned EUR 20 million cost savings for 2026. These would be visible mainly in the reporting segments and then mostly visible in the second half of 2026. For group administration, for the outlook purposes, full year 2025 is a good base level for modeling. In addition, we are doing certain system development to simplify our processes and further improve our cost efficiency, and this will increase the group administration cost level by roughly EUR 5 million in 2026, mainly skewed towards the second half.
So based on these assumptions, we estimate that the 2026 comparable operating profit margin exceeds 13%. And as in previous years, this is the floor level. And then I would like to hand the presentation back to Scott for the summary and final remarks.
Thank you, Mikko. All right, managed to get this to go the right direction one more time. Hey, so thank you very much, Mikko, again, and I'd like to leave you with five key takeaways. One, thinking through the demand environment, we have seen a gradual recovery if we look at broadly the full year 2025 in both EMEA and APAC, especially, positively impacting our lifting equipment business. However, we do see a continued tough environment in the U.S. for our delivery equipment, and as I mentioned earlier, we've seen it quite stable in the prior three quarters. So we'd like to think that that's, that's at a trough level. Number two, despite the decline in sales, we've reached a record high comparable operating profit margin, so nice example of the impact that we're creating through executing on the strategy.
Similarly, key takeaway number three is that we're targeting to lower our cost level by approximately EUR 20 million in 2026, compared to 2025, which Mikko just elaborated. Number four, we continue to execute on the strategy, as I've mentioned a few times previously, with a focus on both growth opportunities, but at the same time, how we increase our relative value creation potential. And all of which should lead to our aim to continue to have an extremely strong balance sheet with excellent cash flow.... So with that, I think I'll turn it over to you, Aki.
Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Mikko. With that, operator, we are ready for the Q&A session.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Antti Kansanen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys, it's Antti from SEB. A couple of questions from me. I'll start with the comments on the U.S. demand, which you are talking about an uncertain environment, but at the same time, not expecting any incremental weakness anymore. So could you maybe open up a little bit on those comments, in a sense that have you seen something start of, let's say, 2026 in the first couple of months that would indicate that your own business has stabilized? Is this more comment on what you are looking at, the leading indicators and the overall macro environment on especially on the U.S. delivery side?
Yeah. How about I start with that? Thank you, Antti, and good morning to you. In terms of the U.S. side, to elaborate, more broadly, we really see that the same factors that have led to the enviable demand environment, especially that we saw in the latter part of Q1 last year, and then, of course, through Q2, Q3, and Q4, should continue into 2026. So we aren't, at this point, seeing any variables that would lead us to believe that the environment gets more, let's say, unstable or an imminent additional risk. So we feel like we have pretty good visibility in terms of the risk.
The environment, at least at this point, continues to be quite similar as it was in 2025, and also somewhat similar to the prior year period as well, in terms of we still see more robust demand from our larger key account customers. So a good portion of the business is still driven by bigger, more lumpy key account orders, which accounts for a bit of the negative variance if you think about Q4 of 2025 versus Q4 of 2024.
So on the other hand, we still see pretty significant pressure on our small and medium-sized customers who are, to the extent possible, delaying decision-making with the environment at hand, that it's hard to understand the level of cost out into the future that they'll actually experience relative to the environment that they'll experience when they take possession of the equipment. So we do still continue to see the small and medium-sized customers softer demand through delayed decision making.
Yeah, just maybe a reminder on how the start of 2025, let's say Q1, Q2, went, especially on the smaller clients in the U.S. Is this kind of a tough comparison if we think about the run rate that you are now entering this year versus what it was a year ago?
Yeah. I'll answer it this way, and hopefully, I hit the point you're getting to, Antti. If you think about the Q4 2024, we had a rather large key account order that hit our order intake in Q4, that we didn't match in the comparison period in 2025, in Q4. We had a couple of nice-sized key account orders in 2025, but not at the magnitude that we had in 2024, which accounted for primarily the variance, especially in the U.S. market that you're mentioning. Now, if you think about the beginning of 2025, the demand environment from the U.S. did give early indications that it might uptick. As we examine more closely, the development sequentially throughout the year of order intake, and particularly in the U.S.
But of course, once the trade tensions manifested themselves, then, of course, we've seen a pretty consistent level of demand, as a consequence from that point forward, and we still see that carrying forward into 2026 at this point.
All right, thank you. Then a couple of more, let's say, housekeeping-related profitability questions. First is on the service profitability and understand the EUR 1 million negative impact that
Yeah
... you point out. But the margin trend is still a little bit different than what we saw on second and third quarter. On the top line, that's not really that much different. So is there something more in play? Just trying to get my estimates right for this year. Is that kind of a 24%-25% margin level a bit too challenging for current environment, or how should we think about it?
Yeah, thanks for the question. So basically, quarter four service profitability without this EUR 1 million U.S. healthcare deficit coverage was 22%. And this is lower than, for example, as you indicated, lower than quarter one, two, or three. Here, basically, the other underlying reason is the lower installation volumes what we have had in services throughout 2025. And this is due to the fact that the equipment order book has declined and the equipment volumes have been lower, so there has been less installation volumes during quarter four. There are certain kind of fixed costs, like rents, for the installation workshops, and this has lowered the services profitability. That's basically. Those are the underlying reasons.
The installation volumes that impact service profitability dropped in Q4 versus the previous two quarters?
Yes, and also compared to quarter four, 2024.
... Okay. And then, then the last one was on something that you said on the group admin side. I mean, EUR 11 million for the quarter, if I remember now, a bit higher than what it has been. Is this a number that then you will further increase by, what was it? EUR 5 million annually going into this year?
There are certain fluctuations, quarterly fluctuations in the group admin admin cost, so that should not necessarily be used as a run rate. But if you think the full year 2025, and what I indicated in the in the outlook, that on top of that we anticipate to have roughly EUR 5 million related to the systems development, which is then expected to generate cost savings in the latter kind of in the later years once the system landscape has been simplified.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Panu Laitinmäki from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I have a few. I would start with the U.S. market outlook, going back to the previous discussion. What do you think is the underlying reason causing the uncertainty? Is it that your product prices have increased and the customers are kind of they need to digest that, or is it just the uncertainty around like what happens with the tariffs next?
Yeah. Hey, good morning, Panu. Thanks for the question. Just to clarify a bit, we still see the hangover from a couple of years prior, where we still have a bit of the inflationary environment that we inherited from the COVID situation, followed by the increase in interest rates. Then, of course, the new variable that entered the equation last year was then the changing trade environment as a result of changes in tariff regime. So where we see a slight difference that I hadn't articulated earlier, is we do see that more acutely impacting our, let's say, retail last mile type customers. So broadly speaking, we see it impacting still similarly in our building construction supplies, waste and recycling, construction, logistics.
But where we do see a difference here is in our retail last mile customers, if you're looking for a bit of, you know, what changed kind of sequentially through the year in 2025, and certainly more so in the second half of the year. Now, it both impacted the top line, and as Mikko articulated earlier, also create a situation where we weren't quite able to keep up with cost out relative to the changes in the top line. So we had a bit of trapped or underabsorbed costs that we'll attend to throughout this year, if you will, as part of our cost savings. But that, though, that mainly are the underlying factors there.
You still had the inflationary environment, the additional variable of the trade tensions, where we do see a bit of change in behavior, who, based on the changes in demand, was most impacted were the retail last mile customers.
Okay, thank you. Then on the market outlook in Europe, could you talk about, like, what are you seeing there and how are the different segments performing, especially interested in defense and construction?
Yeah. Yeah, we certainly saw in Europe a nice, or let's say, a steady pickup in our logistics segments, which shows up in part of our Lifting Solutions . We still see a relatively stable construction environment, so we're yet to see real evidence of, let's say, a sustained uptick in the demand curve. But we have seen some green shoots there where we've perhaps... Well, we've picked up our sales, whether it's an issue of gaining market share or not, we're not sure. I'd say more broadly, in some geographies, we're up, some down. So on balance, we're saying we're relatively stable in terms of the overall market shares in that segment. At the same time, of course, we're seeing a pickup in defense logistics.
However, it's important to note that that's one area of our business where you'll tend to see a large spread from taking the order or having order received versus the revenue recognition. Often, those contracts are multi-year contracts to be delivered over a longer time series, so then the time between order received and rev rec might be longish. So there'll be a bit of a spread between our order intake development versus seeing that in revenue. So I'd keep that in mind, and some of which will be dependent upon our partners in the transaction and how they choose to fulfill the orders that they have to the various military organizations that they provide those solutions to.
And then in terms of services, similar story, more broadly speaking, we continue to see a nice, steady uptick in both order intake as well as services, primarily in revenue rather. And then primarily driven by the execution of the strategy. As I had mentioned earlier in the presentation, we see the nice uptick in our ProCare contract coverage. It's working nicely for both our dealers, as well as executing in terms of the direct sales, and we have more to come there. Similarly, we see a nice uptick in connected units that are turned on, and now we're able to engage more meaningfully with our customers on an ongoing basis relative to how the install base is performing.
But then at the same time, it also gives us a unique opportunity to engage with them in terms of the actual cost and productivity and safety outcomes that they're experiencing, and that's translating into better services revenue uptake as well.
... All right, thanks. Then my final question is on the guidance, or actually two things around the guidance. First one is, can you comment if the more than 13% margin is a guidance for each of the quarters this year? So will it be higher than 13% every quarter? And then more importantly, what are the kind of swing factors in the guidance? You said that it's a floor, and I get that it's quite early in the year, so it's probably conservative, but what are the kind of positives that could drive margin higher than the floor level? And any comments around those?
Yeah. Thanks for the excellent question. As I mentioned in the kind of background of the outlook, we have incorporated the EUR 20 million cost savings in that outlook. Based on the labor union or labor works council negotiations, we anticipate that the new organization could come into force in quarter two. So that means that, mostly those savings would be visible in the second half of 2026. So from that point of view, I would say that one can't say that it's every quarter above 13%. This is a full year outlook, and we aim at being above that 13%.
Great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Koski from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning. A number of questions from me as well. So if I can start with the backlog development. You now have a backlog that is 18% lower compared to a year ago, and I wonder, how will this impact sales in 2026 compared to 2025? i.e., is there a lower absolute amount from the backlog that will be delivered in 2026 compared to what we saw in 2025?
Yeah, I'd say that the... Andreas, thanks. Good morning, by the way, and thanks for the question. So, I'd say the right way to think about the backlog and then how we're thinking about the sales realization in 2026 is as follows: So on the one hand, if I come back to the prior question from Panu, the lower order book by EUR 114 million means that we have then that much less visibility to our revenue curve into 2026. So that's an influencing factor in terms of where we set the floor. Having said that, we've set the floor 100 basis points higher than we did each of the prior two years.
On the other hand, what I would say is the right way to think about the revenue recognition for 2026 is a bit more a factor of looking at the trailing last twelve months order intake. And then, as we've indicated, we're at or about the EUR 1.5 billion range. So that's, for us, the right starting point of, you know, how we think about the potential for this year and then how it relates into setting the outlook for 2026. But at this point, we don't give the outlook relative to the top-line development, primarily because we have...
You know, we're a short cycle business, so we have this four-five months worth of visibility into our revenue curve, with where our order book stands, which is quite at a normal level now.
Understood. Is it fair to say that it sounds like you expect the recovery to continue in EMEA and APAC, and you're now saying that the U.S. market is at trough? In total, it sounds like you expect total orders to move upwards from the stable level that we have now seen for a number of years. Is that the correct reading of what you're saying?
Well, what we're saying is that if you look at the trends throughout 2025, we see a nice recovery in EMEA and APAC. But of course, if you think back to Q4, for example, so Q4 compared to the comparison period, we had a negative variance, whereas we had positive variance for the entire year. So there is still a bit of variability, which is also part of why we're, at this point, not providing guidance on order intake or revenue for the year. And at the same time, we see that if the environment in the U.S. continues as it was in 2025, then we would expect for the demand environment to look similar to what it did in 2025 at this point.
Okay, understood. Then, on the 16 new dealers that you have signed since the beginning of 2024, are most of them at full speed now? And do you see that you're performing better than the market because of these new dealer agreements?
Yeah, yeah, excellent question, and I would say, broadly speaking, not yet. Many of the dealers that we've onboarded have been into the latter half of 2024 and then throughout 2025. So we're, let's say, sequencing the onboarding of the dealers, which of course is quite a nice and involved process in terms of getting them up to speed on our offering, getting the systems behind to support, and then at the same time, getting everyone and both the dealers, as well as on our side, up and mobilized in order to help ensure and secure that our dealers are able to deliver on behalf of today's and tomorrow's customers. So we're at varying stages of mobilizing the dealers.
So I would say, broadly speaking, no, all 16 dealers aren't at full speed yet, but some of which are, and, and we're over time, getting all of the dealers up to speed. And then we would anticipate to continue to add additional dealers as we progress through 2026.
...Understood. And then quickly on the balance sheet, is the board considering any more extraordinary dividend in the years to come, or is the priority now to do acquisitions and grow organically?
Well, I'd say that we have a full mandate to leverage the balance sheet to catalyze growth, both organically and inorganically, and continue to explore ways in which we would successfully deliver value creation back to our shareholders.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Yeah.
The next question comes from Tom Skogman from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead. 3, 5, 8, 5, 0, 3, 3, 9, 0, 9, 0, 1. Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead. The next question comes from Mikael Doepel from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody. So this is, Mikael from Nordea. Thanks for, for taking my questions. So a couple of questions from my side. First of all, how big part of your total revenues or orders was the defense business [Inuadible].
Yeah, on an order basis, our defense for full year 2025 was approximately 7%, so a little bit up from 2024.
Okay, now that's very clear. And then secondly, if you look at 2026, I mean, I understand that you have your cost growth programs, but if you look at the underlying trends in costs, how do you see that developing in terms of material cost, in terms of labor costs? And also, are you still adjusting prices upwards to cover for this? Just a bit on the price cost kind of equation.
Yeah. Yeah. So, in terms of material cost, we still have in our execution plans specific actions that are both process-related as well as design-related, that we think on balance are going to provide favorable variance in terms of our bill of material cost. Labor cost, of course, we have the statutory increases that we assume will come. We don't yet have visibility in terms of what the magnitude of that impact will be, which we're taking into consideration relative to our cost savings program. And then in terms of our pricing environment, as always, there are certain products that we surely are seeking additional pricing for, which we've already announced both in terms of equipment as well as the services side of the business.
There may be a number of SKUs where we go into this year with flat pricing. It all depends on the market list pricing, which is the nature of the environment which we compete in.
There's another follow-up. Okay, no, that is clear. And then just related to pricing, there's a brief follow-up. So, do you see... I mean, in terms of tariffs, would you say that you are still fully able to compensate on that or would you expect that to have some sort of an impact on your margin-
Yeah
- in 2026?
Yeah. Broadly speaking, the answer is yes. And of course, there are always variance around timing, Mikael, but broadly speaking, so far, yes.
All in all, as discussed earlier, basically, our principle has been to treat the tariff as a cost element, so we pass that cost to our customers. We don't put the profit margin on the tariff. And basically, in last year, the tariffs had roughly EUR 20 million impact, kind of a tailwind to our order intake, and then roughly EUR 15 million in sales.
Related to pricing, we have also one question from the webcast. So are our customers pushing back more on pricing compared to prior periods now?
I'd say, as always, our customers are seeking for the best possible price. And we have great customers, so we have tough negotiators, but, I wouldn't say that it's a different level of environment as compared to what we're normally seeing. So it's our obligation to offer the best possible price.
The next question comes from Antti Kansanen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking the follow-ups. Maybe you already answered on the previous one, but I was just wanting to ask how much of that kind of a 0% organic order growth in 2025 was pricing? I mean, you said that tariffs had a EUR 20 million impact, but how about price increases otherwise?
Yeah, I would say that in our equipment business globally, without the tariffs and in Europe and in Americas, I would say that the pricing has been fairly, fairly flat-
Yeah
... in 2025 compared to 2024. In services, we have done certain low single-digit price increases, mainly to reflect, for example, topics like labor, labor inflation. And then, as mentioned earlier... We have implemented in the U.S., since the inflection of the tariffs, then the tariff surcharge. But it's not in a price list, but it, it's a separate kind of cost item in the customer invoice.
And this is kind of a positive or neutral versus kind of cost increases that you have occurred?
I would say neutral. Yeah.
Okay. And then, I mean, I understand that there's no sales guidance, but I'll try anyways. 'Cause you mentioned that kind of the twelve-month rolling order intake, a good starting point, around EUR 1.5 billion. That's also the Q4 run rate we are right now. Then you'll add EUR 50+ million f rom the Brazilian acquisition, and then you are kind of seeing European market recovering, U.S. market not coming down. So if I then add that scenario, that would be a growing top line and maybe together with the savings, also growing earnings. Is there something that I'm misunderstanding here or being too optimistic?
Perhaps one topic to consider is that. If you look the run rate for the revenues, we had more than EUR 400 million revenues in the first and second quarter of 2025, and that was still coming from the a bit higher kind of order intake run rate from 2024.
Yeah.
And the backlog-
Okay
... backlog as well. So perhaps looking the kind of second half, well, like I said, the rolling twelve months is the indicator what we are using for kind of sizing our costs and planning the operational activities.
Sure. And then the ING acquisition, is there anything you want to point out on how much margin dilutive that would be on, on the equipment business, if anything? Or is there some kind of a cost-saving synergies that would already impact this year's numbers?
There is a certain PPA impact. I would say that on an EBIT, EBITDA level, it would be fairly stable as an-
Okay
... as an equipment business. But then, on an EBIT level, there is a certain PPA element, which we will then open as we proceed in 2026 reporting.
Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Tom Skogman from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello, Scott and Mikko and Aki. I would just like to start by asking, do you have expectations for larger defense orders in 2026? I guess these are projects that are discussed for a long time. What do you know?
Yeah, I'll start there and please chip in, Mikko, if I miss something here. But the backlog is pretty robust and exactly as you've described, Tom, we've pretty fairly well known and understood. As we have discussed, maybe since late 2024, however, we have seen a number of, let's say, shorter cycle opportunities that have popped up, and that's maybe one of the key differences that we've seen in the demand environment with defense logistics. So while we have a view today in terms of what the value of the backlog is and what each individual opportunity is, it could easily be so that there are new opportunities that present themselves throughout the year that we didn't foresee, as we speak right now. So that's probably the one change.
In terms of the expectation of how we'll convert that this year, extremely hard to call, as those orders are frustrating at best to dial in as part of a forecast. I'll put it that way.
But overall, I would say that the funnel looks good for the defense.
Yeah
... business, but the timing is-
Timing is really difficult to call.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay, and then on your service business, how large share of sales in 2025 related to installation of new equipment?
Yeah, you can think of it this way. Our non-recurring revenue for 2025 was around 24%-25%, which is linked to our new equipment sales. Installation, specifically, slightly down probably from the last time that I think we had this conversation, so between 10% and 15%.
Okay. And then, what about the utilization rates of your equipment? I didn't see any slide on that when you have your sensors. Is it still the situation in the U.S. that equipment is used a lot, but they don't order?
Yeah, we've seen a lot of change and variability in the utilization. Some periods have been up, some down. Also changes, as it relates to equipment in Europe versus equipment in, in the Americas. So on balance, fairly stable as it related to the prior year period. But to your point-
Okay, and then-
... Tom, it's, we're still in this environment where our customers are sweating the assets. That's no question about that.
Then when you get new distributors, is it so that they start by building up an inventory, or do you need to ship kind of things just to display to them? Or how, how does it usually work now when you get these kind of larger new distribution contracts?
It depends on the nature of the equipment. Some equipment is advantageous for the distributors to have inventory. Of other equipment, it's not necessary based on our lead times. So it all depends on the focus of the particular dealer. Not so insightful if I make a broad statement, if some dealers will build up a bit of inventory because they're gonna focus more on longer cycle business or longer lead time businesses versus others that'll have, let's say, relatively short cycle equipment.
Having said that, then, example where that's a bit counterintuitive is tail lifts would be a great example, where we have distributors in Europe that do maintain a level of inventory because of the need for, less than a day fulfillment, both in terms of the tail lift as well as the parts that are associated with the tail lift. So it, it, it all depends.
Yeah, but the U.S. distributors do not really have inventories of crane, right?
Correct.
And then the EUR 10 million cost saving, how is it split between OpEx and SG&A costs?
Part of this cost savings come... We have not specified how much comes through the SG&A cost. Part of that will be visible also above gross profit. But overall-
Okay, and then?
Overall, EUR 20 million savings in 2026 versus the 2025 cost level.
Yeah, and just a bit more color. If you think about it compared to 2025, then we anticipate a bit more shift towards the below gross profit level cost savings. But at this point, too early to say as we need to complete the labor negotiations process first, then we can provide a bit more color on that as we progress through the year, Tom.
And then finally, you know, with the current exchange rates, and especially the dollar rate, how big impact do you expect it to have on EBIT, you know, after all hedges and everything, basically?
Well, I would say that if we would take, say, 10% weakening of the U.S. dollar from the, let's say, average second half of U.S.-euro rate, that would, that 10% would mean roughly EUR 8 million decline in comparable operating profit.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Okay. Thank you for the good questions and for the presentation and answer from Mikko and Scott. We will be back on twenty-fourth of April with our first quarter results, 2026. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.