Good morning from Helsinki. Welcome to the webcast on Kalmar's interim report for January-March 2026. My name is Carina Geber-Teir, and I'm heading the Investor Relations at Kalmar. Today's result will be presented by our President and CEO, Sami Niiranen, and CFO, Sakari Ahdekivi. At the end of the presentation, as usual, we will have our Q&A session where you can ask questions. I would like to remind you that this webcast is recorded. It will be available on Kalmar's webpage later today. Please pay attention to the disclaimer, as we will be making forward-looking statements. We are now ready to start the presentation. I will hand over to Sami. Sami, please.
Thank you very much, Carina, and good morning, everyone, from Helsinki. It's my pleasure to present Kalmar's first quarter 2026 results. I'm starting with an overview of the first quarter of the year. Overall, we saw stable demand, although geographical instability has increased in the past month. Firstly, our order intake continued on a sequentially stable level, although when looking at the year-over-year figures, it decreased 6% due to a high comparison period. On the other hand, our sales grew by 5% to EUR 420 million and by 10% in constant currencies. Our eco portfolio sales was on a good level, but fully electric order intake was soft. I will revert to this in a bit. Our overall profitability improved, although there were some operational shortfalls in our Services segment. Our Driving Excellence initiative continued well.
Sakari will cover this in more detail in his part of the presentation. Operating cash flow for the quarter was good, and our balance sheet is strong. Looking at 2026, we keep our guidance unchanged. We expect Kalmar's comparable Operating Profit to be above 12.5% in 2026. Let's now have a closer look at the orders received. As I mentioned, overall demand for our equipment and services was relatively stable across different end customer segments. Orders received were sequentially stable. They decreased 6% year-on-year, but only 2% in constant currencies. The decrease was due to a strong comparison period. In the Equipment segment in the first quarter of 2025, there were some sizable orders from customers in ports and terminals, and in services, there were a few large service agreements.
We'll have a look at the geographical breakdown of order intake on the next slide. Our order book remained essentially unchanged. Looking at the overall demand environment, there was continued high interest in our sustainable solutions across different customer segments and regions. Here you can see the geographical split of orders across our reporting segments. EMEA, 48%, the Americas with 36%, APAC, 16% of orders received. Essentially, we got more orders from Americas and APAC, while in EMEA, order intake decreased, which is explained by some sizable orders in the comparison period. In Americas, the distribution end customer market showed gradual recovery, our order intake grew by 6% year-on-year. In APAC, order intake grew 16%, the growth came mainly from Oceania. To sales per segment in the first quarter.
Sales grew by 5% year-on-year to EUR 420 million. In constant currencies, our sales grew by 10% from the 1st quarter of 2025. Equipment sales increased by 7% and services by 2% year-on-year, and services share of sales was 35%. Let's have a closer look at our sales in each geographical region. We saw a positive sales development in all regions during the quarter. In both EMEA and the Americas sales grew, driven by growth in the Equipment segment. In the APAC region, the Ports and Terminals End Customer segment performed well, driving the sales up by 9%. Our eco portfolio sales grew by 10% year-on-year to EUR 187 million.
The share of total sales for our low carbon solutions covering electric, hybrid, and sustainable services increased to 45%. Fully electric machines share of equipment orders for the last 12 months decreased to 9% from 11% a year ago. In the coming quarters, we will expand our electric portfolio further. This will increase our competitiveness and meet the customer needs in the different end markets. Let's now take a closer look at the profitability for the first quarter. Our comparable operating profit increased by 8% year-on-year to EUR 52 million from EUR 48 million a year ago. As you can see in the comparable operating profit bridge on the right, the main driver was higher volumes. Additionally, good commercial execution contributed to improved profitability in the quarter.
We maintained a solid comparable operating profit margin at 12.3%, which is 3% points higher than the comparison period despite the negative impact of tariffs. Kalmar has a well-diversified business portfolio globally with four end customer segments. As I've already mentioned, services share of sales was 35%. Our eco portfolio remains an important driver towards our climate target, which is part of our performance targets until 2028. The sales of the eco portfolio increased in the first quarter and was 45% of total sales. We have a team of approximately 5,300 passionate employees worldwide who are dedicated to executing our strategy. We have continued to demonstrate a strong ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and we are executing our core strategy by staying close to our customers' evolving needs, regardless of the geopolitical weather.
The current macroeconomic uncertainty, driven by geopolitical tensions, leads to increased volatility in economic data, making it difficult to provide long-term forecasts. IMF didn't make any changes to its forecast in April. Global GDP is still expected to increase 3.1% in 2026, slightly down from previous years and, then stabilizes at 3.2%. Drewry downgraded their 2026 forecast as a result of the U.S.-Iran conflict, and they expect global port container growth to slow to +1.7% in 2026 and then rise to 3.1% in 2027. Oxford Economics has released an update regarding their manufacturing and retail forecasts. The key takeaways for the 2026 outlook are as follows.
In manufacturing, the 2026 growth forecast has been slightly revised upward to 3.2%. Despite this upgrade, the growth rate is expected to slow slightly compared to 2025 levels. In retail, the 2026 forecast has been revised upward to 2.8%. Building on the external market estimates from the previous slide, let's look at the current demand outlook for Kalmar. We anticipate that the total market demand for the next 6 months remains approximately at the similar level as in the previous quarters, with the caveat that trade tensions and increased geopolitical instability could have an impact on our markets and the demand from our four end customer segments. Next, an update on the status of Kalmar's connected fleet.
In the first quarter, despite the increased geopolitical unrest towards the end of the quarter, our connected fleet activity stayed on a stable level. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is creating disruptions in logistics routes and results in extended transit times, which also creates a shift in fleet activity between different customer operations depending on the locations. Our installed base has grown steadily to over 70,000 machines from 68,000. At the end of 2025, we had over 16,800 connected equipment globally, compared to 14,500 equipment at the end of 2024. Here you can see new orders announced and added to the first quarter order book. Firstly, we received an order for two hybrid straddle carriers for the training center for harbor workers OCHA in Antwerp, Belgium.
We also booked a large order from our long-term customer, the Port of Tauranga in New Zealand. They ordered 6 hybrid straddle carriers and 1 electric straddle carrier from us. We got a significant order for 14 hybrid straddle carriers to PSA Antwerp in Belgium. Let's continue to our actions driving sustainable growth. Our 5-year Move2Green program, co-funded by Business Finland, has been running for 1 year now. Since the launch, we have 68 new ecosystem partners, and we have started more than 20 internal R&D projects with the focus on future growth horizons. In the second year, we will leverage our ecosystem and launch new ecosystem projects. We also earned top recognition from EcoVadis and CDP. This reflects our collective effort to embed sustainability across our operations.
We were awarded the EcoVadis Gold Medal, placing us in the top 5% of all companies evaluated worldwide. In addition, we secured a place on the CDP A List for climate change. In the 1st quarter, we also launched the TT7 terminal tractor to the European market. The TT7 is specifically designed for the demanding requirements for customers in Europe. It's a robust and reliable solution for port, terminal, yard, distribution, and logistics operations. We believe that sustainable growth is driven by our own operations, but in addition to that, by deepening strategic cooperations and partnerships with leading players and institutions. An example of this is that in March, we donated EUR 100,000 to Tampere University to accelerate the development of key technology areas that are vital for sustainable innovations, especially focusing on electrification, automation, AI, and digitalization.
Moving into a short summary of financial highlights before handing over to Sakari. All in all, if you compare the performance between the two segments, it was clearly mixed. Our sales grew and overall profitability improved, but at the same time, we faced operational headwinds in our Services segment. Orders received decreased year-over-year, but that was mainly due to the high comparison period. Comparable operating profit improved in the Equipment segment, but the Services segment's profitability continued to be burdened by tariffs and challenges in the spare parts sales in North America, partly due to the sluggish market activity in the region.
We continue implementing proactive sales growth, commercial excellence, and cost optimization actions, and we are confident in our ability to improve the profitability of our services business. Finally, I would like to wrap up my part by highlighting that we remain committed to our strategic priorities and driving sustainable growth by leading the industry with innovations towards automation and electrification, expanding our services business and presence, and pursuing operational excellence to ensure long-term value creation in line with our 2028 targets. I'm sure you have all noticed the recent announcements concerning Kalmar leadership team, but here is a brief recap of the announcements that we have made.
We have announced that Sakari Ahdekivi will leave his position as the CFO as of 30th of September 2026, and that Katri Hokkanen was appointed CFO and a member of the Kalmar leadership team no later than 1st of October 2026. Sakari will remain with Kalmar until the end of this year to ensure a smooth transition. We also announced that Tomas Malmborg will step down from the role of President of Services and member of the Kalmar leadership team. Tamara de Gruyter was appointed President of Services and a member of the Kalmar leadership team as of 1st of September 2026, and Tomas Malmborg will remain with Kalmar until year end to ensure a smooth transition. I want to thank both Sakari and Tomas for their contributions for Kalmar and the future growth of the company.
I will hand over now to Sakari. Thank you for listening.
Thank you, Sami, and good morning to everyone on the lines. I'd like to start my presentation by pointing out that Kalmar's financial profile has remained strong, providing us a solid basis for future growth. Our order book has stayed at a healthy level of around EUR 1 billion. Orders received for the last 12 months were approximately EUR 1.8 billion. Due to the good operational execution and successful management of costs, our comparable Operating Profit margin on an LTM basis moved up a notch and was 12.9% at the end of March. Our balance sheet has been further strengthened, and at the end of March, our leverage ratio was actually negative, which is well below our long-term goal of a maximum of 2x . Finally, our cash conversion on an LTM basis was 80%.
Moving into the segments and starting with equipment, where the development was stable. In the first quarter, orders received decreased by 6%, but from a strong comparison period with some sizable orders, which Sami already mentioned, and on top of that, also some FX impact. Order intake decreased in the EMEA region, while orders increased in Americas and APAC. Equipment sales increased 7% year-on-year. Profitability of the equipment segment improved both in absolute and in relative figures. Comparable Operating Profit grew by 17% year-on-year and 1 percentage point in terms of margin. On the comparable Operating Profit bridge on the right, you can see that it was a result mainly of higher volumes. Of course, good commercial execution also contributed to improved profitability. Comparable Operating Profit margin was 12.6%.
We proactively mitigated the majority of the tariff-related impacts, although there were still some small negative impacts on margins within the segment or in some of the product lines. Moving over to the Services segment, it has to be said that in the first quarter, services order intake was soft. Orders received decreased by 6% and totaled EUR 149 million. The drop was mainly because of the comparison period, which was high due to a few large service contracts. Services sales increased by 2% despite market turbulence and totaled EUR 148 million. Services profitability decreased year on year, and this is against a strong comparison quarter in 2025, where we had an Operating Profit margin of 19%. Comparable operating profit decreased by 14% in absolute terms.
The decrease was driven by various external and internal headwinds. There was a negative impact from tariffs, and there were challenges in spare parts sales in North America. We continue cost optimization as well as targeted sales growth and pricing actions, and we are very confident in our ability to improve the profitability of our service business going forward. A brief glimpse on the tariff landscape. We see that the tariff landscape is currently unchanged. However, we continue to monitor the landscape closely. As in the previous quarters, our responses to tariffs have included mitigating actions with price increases, supply chain actions, and other operational excellence initiatives in our operations as well as some documentary requirements. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is driving cost increases in fuel prices and is creating disruptions in logistics routes.
This results in potentially extended transit times, increased freight costs, and also potential component shortages. So far, direct impacts to Kalmar sales have been limited, but in the first quarter, there were indirect impacts through increased freight and fuel costs. The share of Middle East in Kalmar sales is a low single-digit percentage of our total sales. Why I'm showing this is that, of course, while there are certain ports which are impacted negatively by the conflict, there is also some opportunities which arise in the other ports which are not directly impacted and are used to bypass. Shifting gears and moving into the Driving Excellence initiative.
As you remember, our target is to reach EUR 50 million of gross efficiency improvements by the end of 2026 run rate. This is proceeding as planned, and the status is that by the end of March, a run rate of approximately EUR 40 million of annualized gross efficiency improvements have been secured. As before, the majority of the improvements secured originated from successful sourcing activities and then to a lesser extent from process improvements. Our capital, return on capital employed has also increased or improved rather, and at the end of the first quarter, this was at 24.2%. There has been quite a stable upward trend since the beginning of, for a while, several quarters now. Our target here is over 25%, so we are getting closer to the target.
Our balance sheet was further strengthened during the quarter. Our leverage was negative at - 0.1x , well below our long-term target of a maximum of 2x , and our gearing stood at -5.2% . This is before dividend, dividends were paid in April. The decrease in interest-bearing net debt, which improved our leverage ratio, was primarily a result of solid cash generation from operations. Our debt maturity profile remains unchanged. Our liquidity position is strong at EUR 521 million, and this includes an undrawn EUR 200 million revolving credit facility which matures in 2030. On this slide, you can see our cash flow. In the first quarter, we had a very solid cash flow from operations before financing items and taxes amounting to EUR 67 million.
As said before, our cash conversion for the last 12 months was at 80%. Finally, as Sami mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, our guidance for 2026 remains as follows. Kalmar expects its comparable operating profit margin to be above 12.5% in 2026. Finally, here you can see the summary of our interim report of the 1st quarter. I won't repeat the points here. I will finish my presentation so we can move to Q&A. Thank you for your attention. Now, I'm welcoming back Sami and Carina for the Q&A session.
Thank you, Sakari and Sami. I think the audience is eager to ask us questions. I'm handing over to the operator. You may open the lines.
The next question comes from Mikael Doepel from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking my questions. A couple of questions from my side to begin with. First, on the service business, and I think you mentioned some problems with the North American spare parts sales. Maybe you could just, you know, talk a bit about that, what's happening here and how you expect this to trend going forward.
Thanks, Mikael. Let me, let me start and continue what I mentioned in the presentation as well on the sluggish market. The market demand was soft, so that was the primary reason for, I would say, rather low spare parts sales in North America. Of course, when we are losing the spare parts sales, of course it changing the mix in our services portfolio or services sales in total, of course, impacting the profitability as well. I would say the slow market in North America, of course, it has been sluggish a little bit longer period already. So it's nothing new as such.
Of course the, you know, the uncertainties, the crisis that we faced and faced in Q1 as well, and increased, you know, uncertainty levels in different parts of the world, of course impacting quite a lot in North America. The tariff situation as well changed during the quarter. That has been very volatile and fluid overall. Of course the overall uncertainty level, it impacts our customers as well as the dealers, of course, the buying sentiment. That's what we faced in North America and impacting our spare part sales.
Okay.
When it comes to the, if I elaborate a little bit, okay. Now it's too early to say about Q2, of course, no major big change, you know, maybe in April compared to Q1 we can say. Of course, what we are doing already since long time ago, this is nothing ad hoc that we have, you know, invented in Q1. Of course we continue our services focus all over the world. Of course, not only focusing on North America, but everywhere, basically, growing services, you know, in different areas, improving the profitability. We will be even more targeted with our sales actions, more proactive with our customers and dealers.
Then of course, you know, working on the strategic pricing as well, I mean the commercial excellence part that I mentioned. Then of course cost optimization is important as well because we are in services as well as in the whole company, volume driven, pretty volume driven, you know, operations. Therefore it's important that we have the cost team fitted for our demand.
Okay. On that point, I think you mentioned that. I mean, obviously the margins were quite weak, you know, and I guess part of the reason has to do with the mix in the business, which based on what you're saying is unlikely to improve very much. You also mentioned tariff still having an impact. I'm just wondering, you know, about these mitigation actions. I mean, maybe a bit more concrete comments there. Exactly what are you doing? Perhaps more importantly, how fast do you expect to see the results? I.e., I mean, when should we expect the margins here to, you know, let's call it normalize? Is it in the second half of the year or earlier? Later?
What?
Can you comment much around that?
Yeah. Thanks. What I can say is that I'm confident that the margins will improve. What I can say on the timing is that in coming quarters, in plural I mean. Definitely, you know, we have a lot of actions, good actions in place. One thing of course related to North American market is the distribution center. The world-class distribution center that we put up or changed the location last year. Now it's fully up and running, of course, and now it's time to leverage that Greenwood distribution center and provide our customers, dealers, with the fantastic availability of the parts. That's something of course that we are continuously working on.
The proactivity as such, of course, visiting dealers, customers. We have a large operational fleet in North America, of course, a lot of them related to terminal tractors. Of course going to those customers and dealers on a constant basis and offering them our valuable solutions. Of course, that is the base as well. Of course we can be even more targeted with certain sales activities. That's what we have put together now in Q1 as well. I think those are pretty concrete actions on the offensive side. On the defensive side, of course, we need to look at our cost as well, you know.
We have invested in services in the distribution centers in both Europe as well as North America during the last years, of course. The cost have increased a bit, so of course we need to be cautious with them as well.
It's very much a volume.
Mm.
Pushing the sales, in order to be able to then leverage the infrastructure that we have.
Right. On that point, I think, I mean, pricing is obviously one tool as well here, but you're not mentioning that. Is it fair to assume that, you know, the competitive landscape is pretty tough and you won't be able to mitigate, for example, cost inflation fully or tariff fully with the pricing, so you need to, you know, compensate through volumes and internal cost cuts? Is that the right way to read it?
Yeah, I mean, I think I mentioned strategic pricing and commercial excellence activities. That was in the presentation as well. Yes, absolutely that is part of it. I think we have improved the mitigating actions in Q1 compared to last year when it comes to services in North America, of course. But of course the, like, the tariff landscape, when it changed now in Q1, of course we need to adapt to different situations. It has taken some time, you know, to adapt to the new price levels and increase the prices. But of course, you know, there are limits also with our customers and dealers how much you can increase the price.
Of course the aim is to mitigate as much as possible. I'm quite happy with the situation what we have now in Q1 when it comes to mitigating actions. Still we faced some dilution because of tariffs. That's the reality. That was the same-
Yeah
with equipment, as well.
Yeah. Okay, fair. Then just finally, switching gears a bit here. Looking at the equipment business, how would you describe the sales funnels here going forward? I mean, if you look at the various regions, the various segments, I mean, what are you seeing heading into Q2?
Yeah. I think for the next six months, next two quarters, I think the market demand pretty similar, stable compared to the previous quarters. Similar type of statement what we did a couple of months ago, you know, in the previous reporting as well. That's what we see. The demand is stable, I would say worldwide in different customer segments. I think ports and terminals is still pretty active. The Distribution End Customer segment has been the slowest one. Now we saw a bit of a gradual improvement like last year exactly at the same time for terminal tractor business in North America.
Let's now see, depending on the conflict situation uncertainties, of course, how that will evolve in the coming months. I think the stable market demand, I would say, overall. Of course Iran, U.S. conflict, if that starts impacting more largely, you know, the cost of money, inflation, Asian business or Asian operations, I mean, in the global scale, of course, that might have an impact. As we see today, I think a stable market outlook.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Panu Laitinmäki from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking those questions. Firstly, going back to the service topic, just thinking about the U.S. spare part demand, is it that the customers are kind of delaying buying spare parts, or is there lower activity so they need less spare parts, or is it that they can buy third-party spare parts if you have increased pricing due to tariffs? Just thinking kind of what is driving the lower demand.
Good, good points, Panu . I think overall, of course, if you look back a little bit and even look at the connected fleet and the operating activity, last year, last years, of course, it was quite a decline, you know, in the fleet activity in the past. Now last couple of quarters it has been flattening out, so that we have seen even some, you know, low 1-digit positive indications, % in the fleet activity. I think overall, the activity is still very slow and that's what we refer to with our sluggish market environment statement as well.
Of course, the tariff situation at the same time, price increases, you know, it's not helping the situation and it creates uncertainties and it even with customers, dealers, of course, it creates, you know, thinking about, okay, what will be the pain point on the spare part pricing. I think it's a combination of all this. The market, despite having 1% increased activity year-on-year or quarter-on-quarter, is not changing the big picture that much. It's still quite a slow market in North America.
And maybe adding some-
Okay. Thank you
adding to Sami's answer there. He was talking about the mix and looking at our dealer network. They are very highly using our kind of web services and buying online. The online share of sales is high in U.S. and also a very profitable part of the spare parts business. That's good to keep in mind.
Okay. Thank you. Secondly, on costs, actually two things around that one. Just on the group cost, it was down in Q1. What should be kind of model for the coming quarters or the full year? On the Excellence program, you are now have reached 40 million run rate. How much of that should we expect to have a net impact on your EBIT in 2026 and next year?
If I cover the group cost question first, I'm not expecting any major changes in that compared to what we have in the first quarter. Maybe something which was interesting is that our associated company turned a profit in Q1, which of course helped, compared to a loss 1 year ago. On the Driving Excellence, we haven't actually given out exact numbers on that. Of course, you have to remember that we started this program at beginning of 2025, so this the increment from full year to current was from EUR 34 - EUR 40.
You have some carryover from the activities that were done last year, the new actions which always then hit the P&L with a lag because first you have a new price with a new contract, then it comes into force a bit later, then you have some inventory, and before you actually use the new price and you revenue it takes some time. I think you should see similar impacts to what you saw in 2025.
Okay. Can I just ask as a follow-up, should we think that the kind of net impacts are like, half of that is still ahead of us, or have you already achieved most of that, or kind of where you are now given that you mentioned you have a lag?
From implementing this and seeing things in the P&L side.
I, as I said, I think, you should continue to see similar for now. If the run rate now is 40 and we're going for 50, of course it means that we still have impacts coming from back end of last year into to this year's P&L. It's complicated because then you have the tariffs and the pricing and then you have the sourcing savings, and then that all shows up then finally in the margin. It's a mix of many things.
Okay. Thank you. Maybe a final one on capital allocation. You had net cash in Q1. Do you have any comments on the capital allocation as you are now clearly below your own balance sheet targets?
Not really new comments. The only thing I would say is what I mentioned in the presentation that, of course, the cash position didn't include yet the dividends which were paid out after Q1. That of course has then an impact. Other than that, no new comment.
Yeah. Full focus on our organic strategy that we have in place of course. You know, being a or staying as a good dividend payer, you know, and then focusing on R&D, innovation, in total as well as services of course, and keeping our factories and innovation centers in a good shape.
We did announce.
Okay. Thank you
A share, a share buyback, which of course has to do with our incentive programs.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Tom Skogman from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. This is Tom from DNB Carnegie. Looking at the details, I can see that there's a pretty big step up in depreciation in Q1 explaining perhaps a bit of the EBIT kind of challenges. Can you open up what this is about? Is it about the new service centers, for instance? Or, what is the reason? Is it kind of continuing in coming quarters?
I would say, Tom, that it has to do with certain CapEx that was done or implemented, of course, now in the recent past. Other than that, of course, then, there's nothing exceptional in that. That should be expected to continue.
Is it more on the service or the equipment side?
Well, the CapEx is more on the equipment side.
Okay. The PPAs, they are not big of course, but can you just give, you know, guidance on how long they will continue?
Sorry, Tom, can you repeat that?
The PPAs, they are of course not that large, but can you just give an update on how many years they will continue?
I don't have a number of years for you. We'll have to come back, Tom.
Okay. Then about the new electric machines, I saw that, you know, the share of orders last 12 months is down to 9% from 11%. I mean, how big impact should we expect from these new products? Can you open up a bit more? I mean, how big part of your product will get new models now the next couple of quarters that could turn this trend around?
Yeah. That's a good question. Yes, exactly right. 9%, that's the level where we are as of today. We have been hovering around 10% in the last couple of quarters. Of course, I'm not, you know, completely happy with the situation and therefore of course, we will, you know, act accordingly in the future and launch some new products. I would like to maybe go a little bit back to last year, what we did with the next generation batteries already and which have been implemented to both our counterbalanced equipment as well as the horizontal transportation equipment.
Now in April, okay, after Q1, of course, we saw an order coming from Brazil, for instance, including those next generation batteries. I think that was one of the major product upgrades or launches what we did last year already, which we expect to really deliver a more positive result in electrification and fully electric machines. That was one that we did already in 2025. The coming ones, I would say in the next couple of weeks or months, that we will talk about a little bit more. Of course, we will be completing our portfolio and expanding to certain regions, other countries as well.
No, no numbers about, you know, how much that will impact, but they are very important products for us. Of course, we have a wide portfolio already as of today, but it's a part of our white spot strategy as we call it, you know, territory management to look at where we can grow. Of course the interest in electrification, that is very high. The decision-making takes time still. It's not quick decisions. I think by putting together our well-performing portfolio and the customer feedback on the electric machines, I think that will give a good base, the services part as well. Always when we are selling the electric machine, we try to attach some kind of service offering there.
I think those actions together with the new launches, product launches, will of course give a positive impact going forward. I'm positive with the electrification going forward. Absolutely. I think the customers' interest has remained high up until today.
Yeah, and as a reminder for the clarification, quite often when we talk about the electrification, the light forklift truck market is the one that is the furthest in fully electric equipment. The heavy machinery is behind that. When you compare numbers, you always have to remember that it changes if you deduct the light forklift truck market from those numbers.
Can we just get some kind of feeling, I mean, how is the line performing? What are your market shares higher or lower in electric machines if you look at then lighter and more heavy products? I think this is very important for investors to understand, you know, whether you are like a winner from, you know, electrification or whether you struggle to keep your market shares when the technology is shifting.
I think when we talk about medium heavy machines, of course, we are strong there as we are with the Eco portfolio and diesel machines as well. With the lighter we go in the range, of course, you know, towards 5-ton machines and so forth, then there are more players around of course. The competitive landscape, it varies between different regions. We have previously talked about, I think, you know, tougher market in Asia, for instance, even in the emerging markets, because there are more competitors around there. I think our strongholds, North America, Europe, and so forth, I think, we are well situated there.
When we look at the portfolio as of today and then when we add a couple of more products there, including the next generation batteries that we launched last year already, I think, we have a sound portfolio to grow further.
Okay. Finally about, you know, the spare parts in the U.S., do you see that the challenge is bigger in kind of spare parts where you compete with the likes of Volvo and Cummins or in kind of more Kalmar specific spare parts in hydraulics?
I think it's building from the from the lower or low market activity as such, on on different equipment of course. We have a lot of terminal tractors out there and that market has been down for quite some time. We talk about maybe 2 years, previous 2 years. I think that has not really picked up and we saw a bit of gradual improvement last year at the same period, which slowed down again and now we saw a bit of gradual improvement with terminal tractor sales, which is great. Let's see how it continues now going forward. Those have the relationship there. Then it's, you know, it's both commercial parts as well as of course, Kalmar specific parts.
The higher the captivity or capture rate on Kalmar parts we have on our machines, of course, the better likelihood we have to sell them, more.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Antti Kansanen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys. I wanted to still come back to the U.S. spare parts situation currently. I mean, looking at kind of the activity of your connected fleet in the past 12 months, it's been a bit up and down, but fairly stable in the U.S. Maybe you could provide a little bit more color on the magnitude of the volume drop in the spare parts business in the past couple of quarters where you have seen the negative impact on the margins and also, how much is pricing impacting on, let's say, services, sales and orders that you have taken so far? Just trying to get kind of the volume figures so I understand better the impact on margins.
Let's say if I, if I elaborate a little bit here, not very, you know, accurate numbers probably. We can talk about in the parts sales in North America, maybe 10-20% lower demand. I would say then the pricing side, of course, that is something different. I don't know. Of course, we have tried to mitigate, of course, the tariff impact as good as possible. Now we are, you know, narrowing down the gap between the, you know, the customer pricing and the tariff levels. Still there is a bit of mitigation to be done.
What hasn't been mentioned is there's also a little bit of FX impact in the service margin.
Yeah. comparing to the-
Yeah. Of course
... you know, Q1 2025, of course.
Yeah
There is a bit of difference there.
Yeah. Sure. Maybe on the, on the pricing side, I guess, both on the equipment and services, if you look at the tariff landscape changes in the past year and the recent ones in April, is there any kind of a surcharge or the net pricing impact that we should think about that is now kind of visible on the orders that you're taking right now compared to, let's say, the pre-tariff environment? How much is the price hike?
Yeah. I think the latest changes that we faced now, when was it? A couple of weeks ago, basically. I think on the Kalmar level, I think the tariff impact will be pretty similar to last year. No major change on the Kalmar level. When it comes to different products, like the counterbalanced equipment, forklifts, and empty container handlers, there the tariff, the current tariff, because of the different interpretation of the steel tariff, the tariff will be higher. There might be a little bit lower tariff on the spare parts as well as some other product categories as well. On the Kalmar level, I think the tariff landscape remains approximately the same as 2025.
It's good to keep in mind that the Section 122 that came instead of the reciprocal tariff, that's valid until the end of July, and basically we don't know what's ahead, so that's why the situation remains fluid and we have to adjust accordingly.
Okay. Yeah, sorry. Did I interrupt somebody?
No.
No.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. The final one was on a maybe more positive note on the demand at the U.S. Distribution segment. You mentioned that some improvement, some signs of improvement, is this something that we could build upon going into 2? Was this something through the quarter improvement? Was it substantial? Is it just the pent-up demand kind of ending and replacement cycle starting, or how should we think about it?
Let's wait and see. That's my comment. Let's say the impact or the improvement, maybe it was in the same magnitude what we had last year at Q1 2025 as well. Not very major, but some kind of bit more light in the end of the tunnel, a little bit more activity and orders in Q1 this year. Now, depending on the uncertainties, the conflicts in the Middle East, for instance, and how it impacts the North American market or the U.S. market, for instance, when it comes to inflation and pricing and so forth, I think it's better to wait and see.
Little bit too early to say, so we will come back to you, in our report, with our report in July.
Okay. Was it, maybe, some of your bigger key accounts ordering coming back, or was it kind of a broad base from smaller and mid-sized-?
I, I-
clients, or?
I think it was both. There were a couple of a little bit larger orders, as well as then the bread-and-butter orders as well. It was a good mix in a way.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mikael Doepel from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Just a very brief follow-up on the Middle East. You talked about your revenue exposure there. You talk about experiencing some cost increases. Are you able to quantify those cost increases? I mean, what's the magnitude that you're seeing or have seen in Q1? I mean, what do you expect into Q2? Do you have any clauses or hedging in place that that's gonna affect you? How are you dealing with the situation?
Yeah, good question. In Q1, very minimal impact on the cost side, I would say, on the negative side. On a positive note, I can mention that we have won some orders in that region as well, it's not only bad for our business. That's what we have been saying, that, you know, when the geopolitical changes occur, of course, there might be new business opportunities as well. On the cost side, nothing major in Q1. When it comes to, you know, coming quarters and our contracts, I think we are quite well protected with our contracts. We have different kind of freight contracts, of course.
Then we need to look at both, you know, our contracts with our suppliers as well as with our customers. It's a mix of different things and, you know, including maybe pass-through pricing mechanism as well. But we follow up on the situation, and should the crisis conflict prolong, of course, then, you know, the risks will increase definitely.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Thank you all for active participation and good questions. I think we are heading towards the end of this session.
Mm
... going forward, to see you online and also face to face in the coming quarters. I would like to remind you that our first, our result for the first half of 2026 will be published on the 22nd of July. Thank you for now from Helsinki, and have a nice rest of the day. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.