Good afternoon. Good morning, everyone. This is Juha from Metso's Investor Relations, and a warm welcome to our first quarter 2026 results conference call, where we have our President and CEO, Sami Takaluoma, and CFO, Pasi Kyckling, briefing you about the results. Sami will start with some of the highlights, and then Pasi will walk you through financials and cash flows in more detail. After that, we are taking your questions. Before we start, a couple of reminders. First of all, we will have our forward-looking statements disclaimer in the presentation deck. Today is our AGM, so it's a busy day, and that's why we are going to limit this call to 50 minutes. Please take that into account and ask as briefly as you can. We would appreciate that. With these words, Sami, over to you.
Thank you, Juha, and good afternoon also from my behalf to everybody. Let's go through the Q1 performance. In a nutshell, strong orders and delivered a solid margin during the first quarter of this year. Our orders received amounted to EUR 1.555 billion. This is 6% growth year-on-year, and in organic constant currencies, it's 10%. Sales was EUR 1.252 billion, and this was also growth from last year, 3%, or in organic constant currencies, 5%. Adjusted EBITA EUR 203 million, growth 5% year-on-year and representing 16.2% margin, relatively. Operating cash flow for the quarter was EUR 78 million, and in the rolling 12 months, it's representing EUR 856 million of operating cash flow. As said, the order intake for the year was strong and kicked off our year very well and nicely. Our book-to-bill for the period is 1.24, improvement from the last year when it was 1.21.
Order growth was strongest in the Aggregates equipment and Minerals aftermarket. Our backlog went up by 6%, and this was heavily driven by the aftermarket in our backlog now. Sales growth that we delivered was mainly led by the Minerals equipment, where we continued to finish the projects. Minerals segment was the main contributor to adjusted EBITA growth that we delivered in Q1. Our strategy, We Go Beyond, that we launched in Q4 last year is now under execution. It is focusing on the high-value growth elements. We are doing the investment in a rubber products plant in China. During the period, we also completed the acquisition of MRA Automation, Australian-based automation and software company. One I really want to highlight here is the partnership with Loesche.
We are introducing the vertical roller mill dry grinding technology, groundbreaking with a very energy-efficient way of doing the grinding in the future. Completion of our divestments, both the Ferrous and our Loading and Hauling businesses, they were completed as planned during the period, creating further strength for our strategy execution, focusing on the right topics. We have also completed the ERP renewal project. Rollout is done. We have now state-of-the-art software in use for the whole company the same way. The next phase is then to get the benefits of this investment in the coming quarters and years ahead of us. Also, I want to highlight that the record high engagement score and also noteworthy the active co-creation that is strengthening the growth culture that we have.
We are measuring the employee engagement four times a year, and it was a pleasure to see the all-time high scores now in the Q1 round. Regarding the outlook, we keep the outlook unchanged. We do see the market as a positive, meaning that it stays in the stable, good activity level. Market activity in both minerals and aggregates are expected to remain at the current level. I want to highlight also in this statement as well that the geopolitical turbulence could potentially affect the global economic growth and therefore also the market activity in our segments. Now if I give the microphone to Pasi to walk through the financials and the cash flow topics.
Thank you, Sami, and good day everyone also on my behalf. Let's start by looking at our orders and revenue development. Order intake at EUR 1.555 billion, representing 6% year-on-year growth or 10% growth in constant currencies. The equipment side of the business grew 8% or 12% in constant currencies and after-market orders by 4% or 8% in constant currencies. The order performance was especially good in aggregates capital side and then minerals after-market business. After-market part of the overall orders was 66%. In this quarter, we also won the EUR 100 million greenfield copper project in Peru and in the comparison period we had EUR 60 million order from Almalyk project in Uzbekistan included. The order book at the end of Q1 totaled to EUR 3.6 billion. It's roughly 6% up year-on-year and all that increase comes from minerals after-market business.
Our revenue at EUR 1.252 billion was 3% up or 5% in constant currencies. It was driven by equipment. Aftermarket was 1% down, and aftermarket represented 55% of our sales. Let's then look at our EBITDA development and earnings per share. Our EBITDA increased to EUR 203 million and then from margin point of view, the increase was 0.3 margin points from 15.9%-16.2%. The higher volumes contributed with EUR 13 million in a positive way, and the gross margin increased by EUR 25 million or by two margin points. On the headwind side we have increase in our SG&A by EUR 12 million. Under other items, it's primarily currency, where we had last year some tailwind and this year some headwind. This relates primarily to hedges that we don't hedge accounting, and we need to mark-to-market at the end of each quarter.
Overall, in Q1 both equipment businesses, in aggregates and in minerals continue to deliver healthy margin levels. EPS is unchanged from a year ago at EUR 0.14. If we then move to our cash flow, cash flow from operations was lower than in comparison period at EUR 78 million. This was mainly due to inventory buildup and timing of the cash flows in our minerals capital project deliveries. In inventory, it's primarily work in progress inventory and it is in both aggregates capital and minerals after market. In minerals after market, it is especially upgrades and modernizations, where we have had good order intake during last year and are now in the middle of delivering many of those activities. In aggregates, it is aggregates capital. It's more seasonal. We are preparing for the stronger equipment delivery season during the European or Northern Hemisphere summer period.
Looking at the rolling 12-month cash flow from operations and then the cash conversion, we continue to be at a healthy level and we expect to deliver also healthy cash flow throughout 2026. If we then move to our balance sheet, balance sheet continues to be strong and supports fully our strategy execution. Net debt to EBITDA is unchanged at 1.2 x. We continue to have Baa2 long-term credit rating with positive outlook from Moody's. That continues to be a good support for us while we execute our strategy. Let's then look at our segments and start with Aggregates where we have all-time high order intake at EUR 440 million. It's noteworthy that in this order intake, we see a clear pattern that some of the orders are placed not only for the second quarter, but also for the second half of the year.
Sort of a pre-buying phenomena visible in that regard. The equipment orders represent 20% growth and after market is 14% down. Regarding the after-market development, I just want to highlight that we have done a minor adjustment in our presentation between capital and after market when it comes to screens, and that has a slight negative impact on the reported growth numbers in the after-market part, both in orders and revenue. We have not adjusted the comparison periods. EBITDA in Aggregates was EUR 1 million down at EUR 48 million with solid 16% margin and continued healthy margins in the equipment side of the business. If we look at our Minerals there, the orders increased by 5% or 8% in constant currencies to slightly above EUR 1.1 billion. Equipment orders were flat or 3% up in constant currencies.
Again, I just want to highlight the major order that we won from Southern Peru Copper Corporation regarding their greenfield copper project in Peru. Small and medium-sized orders were at a good level and on average at the same level that we had during 2025. Aftermarket orders increased 7% in reported currencies or reported numbers and 10% in constant currencies. The upgrade and modernization part of the business from order point of view is up 14% year-on-year. We continue to see a very healthy development there. Spares and consumables are supported by the good high utilization in our existing customer mines. Aftermarket share of the total orders was 66%. Sales increased 5% to EUR 953 million, representing 6% organic growth. We had 3% currency impact and then also 2% positive impact from acquisitions that were concluded after the previous period.
Equipment sales up 14% and aftermarket up 1%. Again, we continue to have a very strong order backlog when it comes to aftermarket and expect that to deliver also revenues during the coming quarters. Adjusted EBITDA at EUR 168 million with solid 17.6% margin. This was supported by overall sales increase and then healthy profitability in our equipment part of the minerals business. With that, I would like to hand back to Sami to summarize our quarter.
Thank you, Pasi. I said already, very solid start for the year and strong orders creating a very good, healthy backlog. We do see the heightened geopolitical uncertainty remaining as a risk, and then our strategy execution is progressing very well at the moment. With that, to you, Juha.
Thank you, gentlemen and operator. Now it's time to open the Q&A lines.
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 Chitrita Sinha from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Sami and Pasi. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three, please. Just firstly, to ask on the phasing of the aftermarket deliveries this year. If I look at kind of the average orders for the last few quarters, it's been above EUR 650, but then Q1 deliveries was weaker. It was below EUR 600. Can we expect to pick up from Q2? Yeah, how are you thinking about it?
Yeah, thank you. Good question, and your logic is correct. We do see that we have this good backlog that has been built up, and the deliveries are starting from the Q2 onwards then. That is something that you can expect to see from the Q2 sales point of view.
Great. Thank you. My second question is just if you could provide a bit more color on the demand backdrop in minerals. We've clearly seen a significant amount of volatility in commodity prices this year. Maybe by commodity would be really helpful.
Yes, we have highlighted this also in the report that we do see this as a risk. We all remember what was the year 2025 and how tariffs did impact partly for that demand. However, the indications of any major delays or postponing or even canceling the decision of the new capital projects are not really here. We don't hear that from those customers that we discuss at the moment. But it's very clear that especially the energy price cost and how does the future look like is having an impact, and it needs to be calculated in for those projects. That's why we do keep that as a potential risk at the moment.
Just adding a little bit color from commodity point of view. Like we have seen during the course of last year and early this year, we still continue to see high amount of activity in copper and gold-driven projects. Don't see that those demand drivers have changed by any means. It's the same market where we continue to operate.
Okay, thank you. Final question is just on the inventory buildup this quarter. I know you've provided a bit more color in terms of why that happened, but maybe if you could give a bit more detail in terms of what kind of range should we be thinking about. Previously, we've spoken about maybe going towards the EUR 1,800 level, and now if I look at the Q1 inventory level, it's gone up towards the EUR 2 billion. Is there maybe a range that we should be thinking about when looking at inventories? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for that and fair question. At the same time, we will not provide you a range, but rather think that way, that over time, the inventory efficiency, and as a matter of fact, the working capital efficiency overall, should not deteriorate. While we don't have a formal target, a financial target on working capital and inventory to be more specific, we see opportunities to improve the efficiency. Obviously, first quarter was not the proof point of that, but it's only one balance sheet point. We are working with the underlying drivers there to improve the overall efficiency, and then provide solid cash conversion. When I talk about efficiencies, I'm referring to working capital over sales or then, DIO, DSO, DPO type relative indicators.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, Sami and Pasi. Klas at Citi. My first one is on Section 232 and the changes to steel, aluminum, and copper from April 6th. I'm trying to understand the extent you're impacted. Will this increase your effective tariff rate, and by how much? And can you remind us of the import share to the U.S. for the group and for the two divisions, and how much today of COGS is steel, aluminum, and copper? I have a 50% import share for the group and about high single-digit share of COGS being raw materials, but any more sort of color here would be very, very helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Klas. Good and current one. Not sure if I can provide all that detail to you, but if we start from the helicopter point of view, aggregate business continues to be excluded from 232. We indeed recently saw the change in 232, when it comes to the calculation basis for that. Earlier it was the steel, aluminum content, and now it seems to be the total tariff value of the equipment in question. Then obviously, that's driving the tariff base up. From our point of view, we continue to work with the same approach as we have done during the course of last year. We work with our customers with surcharges and the new surcharges based on this initial period seem to be higher, which makes sense from the calculation logic point of view.
That is what we are charging from our customers. Again, we are not making money out of those, but we are not suffering from those either. That's the approach we have taken and continue to take on this.
You're basically seeing the reciprocal tariff, basically. You're not seeing anything on steel, aluminum, and copper from Section 232 impacting the aggregates business. Just to confirm if that's clearly-
That's correct. To be more specific on aggregates, and maybe I said it already, but screens and crushers are excluded from this tariff. There was a speculation late last year that the exclusion would come to an end, but we haven't seen that happening, which is obviously positive.
Okay. No, that's good to hear. My second very quick one, I know we're only allowed to ask one question, but this is super quick. Just on aggregates, you're talking about pull forward of orders. Can we talk a little bit about the reasons why there's some pull forward? Because people were thinking that this could be a change for tariffs. Was this North America-led? Also in Europe, are you seeing some hesitation? Obviously aggregates is, and construction is quite sensitive to inflation rates and so forth. It's early days, but are we seeing any sort of customer discussions showing some hesitations in Europe? Just to get some more color on this pull forward and also European commentary. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Klas. What we did see was these orders in U.S. for the aggregates with the requested delivery date, not immediately, but later on the year. We took that as a positive signal that the customers and our distributors do see the market as very good and looking good also going forward. These have been then reflecting these orders, the situation in the market. When it comes to Europe, it still remains kind of like not one rule to apply for the whole continent, but it's more like a country-based approaches. We see activity in southern and eastern European side, and then remains still quite slow from the perspective of so-called, maybe even more traditional aggregate countries. From that point of view, do we see elevated level of hesitation discussions? Not maybe really, Klas.
It's not unchanged from the end of the year when it comes to the European side.
Maybe then, just from order.
Okay. Thank you.
... Klas, still from order book point of view, both Europe and North America had a healthy order growth. This growth is coming from both of our main markets.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Christian Hinderaker from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, Sami, Pasi, Juha. I want to start on the Middle East, if I may. Can you just confirm your percent sales exposure to the region, maybe highlight any single country context worth discussing? You mentioned in the release targeted measures to manage supply chain and operational risks. I appreciate it's fluid, but what's your current base case for the direct and indirect cost effects?
Yeah. To start from the region, so it represents something like 3% of the whole company sales. That's the exposure. Of course, the situation has created certain activities also on our side. Logistics is one clear one. We have been in quite a good situation because many of our supply routes have already been going around Africa before the incident started. From that perspective, the countries in question, obviously Saudi is a big one for us. We got at the end of last year the gold plant order as an example. Then also Oman has been a country that we have a lot of activity at the moment. As it is today, operations continue, our work continues. We of course need to very carefully all the time observe the situation and how it develops. This is how we see the Middle East situation at the moment.
Maybe still just to add a color. Obviously, logistics costs are up. We see some fossil fuel-related inflation. The way we are approaching this is similar that we did during the COVID time, playing inflation game in a way in both end of the supply chain, in one hand with our suppliers, and then in the other hand with customers to manage it well. Just to confirm that we obviously see also some of those inflationary pressures that have surfaced after the crisis.
Thank you. Can I just come back to the Section 232 and also your comments on aggregates pre-buy? If a customer's ordering now, are they affected by the tariff if it changes later? Do you think the pre-buy is about that tariff concern or you think it's more about hopes for demand improvement?
Christian, it's a very good question. When it comes to tariff speculations, obviously, should there be tariffs, we don't know how they are implemented, whether they are implemented on sort of new deliveries or everything that crosses the border after certain point and so forth. That's difficult to say. Our read is more that's a sign of confidence to longer-term market development in the U.S. and sort of our partners, distributors, customers preparing for that not only in imminent short term but also looking towards the second half of the year.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Antti Kansanen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. A few questions from me as well. I'll start with the demand on the minerals aftermarket side, and I mean, good growth, and you have had now four quarters of decent growth on the business. Could you maybe remind a little bit on kind of the growth potential going forward, the comparison, the timing of kind of when you started to see the modernization and retrofit business increasing? I mean, is it reasonable to now assume a bit of a normalization on the growth or do you think you can still accelerate on that one?
Yeah, thanks, Antti. For the minerals aftermarket side, it's one of those centerpieces of this growth strategy. We do see potential to continue to deliver growth. Actually, the target as well is that we see the aftermarket products demand very good at the moment, market as well. That makes us to see that strong single-digit growth numbers to be delivered also in the future. You know very well and reminder that we are having the widest portfolio of the technologies in the downstream of the minerals processing, and that gives us a very good potential for the growth going forward as well. Modernization and upgrades, they are the one that have a certain cyclicity. From that perspective, as Pasi was stating, we have seen good amount of these orders coming in the past few quarters already.
How that looks going forward is that the funnel, the pipeline for new orders is looking good. It's about the timing issue of the customers to make the actual decision to move forward with these opportunities.
Okay, great. Maybe a follow-up on the things that you said on what you expect from the decision-making and kind of the geopolitical uncertainties. I just wanted to make sure, because you've been quite optimistic on certain large orders and investment decisions. Have you seen any concrete evidence kind of in March or early April that some of your clients have been maybe slowing down some of the processes or are asking to recalculate some of the project items because of inflation? Is this just a kind of a cautionary statement if the war lingers on and will have an additional impact?
Yeah. We have, as I said already. Many of the customers that we have discussions in a certain phase, they have not indicated any change of the timetables. On the other hand, yes, we do see also a recalculation need also coming to our direction to check certain project elements and the timing of them, and also the price from our side to them. It's an indication that the recalculation, it is happening and for me it makes sense also to do that, of course. This is why we remain a little bit cautious of that what will be the true impact of this for this greenfield and large brownfield projects going forward during this year.
Okay. The very last from me is your exposure to LNG availability and prices through your foundry setup. Could you comment if there's any substantial risk that you see because of the war?
Yeah. Thank you. That's coming mainly from the India side, where the LNG was and is the main energy source. Yes, we did see the risks, especially in the beginning of the escalation of the situation and the incident in Qatar. What we have seen is that the prices have increased, which is natural. The biggest risk that we had in our hands was that do we have enough LNG to run the operations. That has not materialized, so we have been able to operate normally. The cost level has increased and also our suppliers have been seeing the same and adjusting the prices. As Pasi was saying, this is what we see on the logistics side and also then on the component and supplier side.
This will lead to price increases from your end going forward.
This is the normal way to handle this. As I said, we have taken this into account in our price increases that have been introduced in April and 1st of May, the next batch.
All right. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Tore Fangmann from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you Sami and Pasi for taking the time. Just two questions left for me, both on the aggregates side of the business. First one would be, so we do see now and for a while, a pickup in the equipment demand in aggregates. On the other side, the service part, the aftermarket side of things remains fairly low and weak. Could you just help me square this together? There's need from customers for new equipment, but on the other side the utilization still remains low. Thank you.
Yeah. For the aftermarket question, so it is exactly as you said. When the utilization of the machines is low, so then the demand and need for the aftermarket product is also low and that's the reason for our aftermarket not yet in a growth mode in the aggregate side. Our capital equipment business in aggregate is going through the distribution, especially in the U.S., and then the equipment is ordered and delivered, and they don't always go directly for the end customers to use to generate the aftermarket either, because during the 2025, the distributor stock levels normalized, meaning that every month they were in a lower and lower level. Now there is a need for restocking and having the machines available for the work for the end customers with the coming months and quarters.
Okay, understand. Maybe just to follow up on this one. To me, when utilization still is low, it seems like the overall end market demand has still not really picked up. The current growth in equipment, and you also mentioned some pre-buying already for the second half of the year. Is this all just distributor-driven or is this actually end market demand-driven, the pickup that you see?
I think the pickup is the end market driven, but need to remember that this is very regional or let's say even local business. As an example from Europe, there might be good activity both in the new equipment orders and also utilization of the existing equipment in the country. Then the neighboring country might be on the quite opposite way. This is what is highlighting also the dynamics of the aggregate industry in general.
Okay. Understood. Just one last, a very broad understanding. Strength in Europe is largely driven by the Eastern European countries. Any sense around Germany or other Western European countries picking up again? Any impact from the infrastructure package from Germany? If there's something you can share. Thank you.
Yeah. There's a so-called traditional good markets for us, like Germany, France and so on. They are not zero, but on a low-ish level. For the Germany specific question, so our customers do not see yet any impact of that stimulus package that was announced. That's why they have not been activating themselves either when it comes to the orders.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from William Mackie from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, and thank you for fitting me in here to you all. My first maybe was to go back to the question about minerals aftermarket and just dive into the discussion about the disconnect between the order intake and the revenue booking. Can you maybe provide a bit more color on what it is that has caused the lumpiness of orders and the disconnect for the revenue booking in aftermarket minerals? When we look into the Q2 to Q4 acceleration of revenue bookings, can you give a little flavor as to either the regions or the product segments which you expect to lead to that upturn in aftermarket, please?
Yes, Will. Thank you very much. A good question. If we start from lumpiness point of view, so especially the orders, we believe we have seen sort of a solid healthy high single digit growth from period to period like we saw also now. Maybe, if you refer to with lumpiness to the revenue side. Indeed, the growth has not yet picked up in revenue and that is simply timing question for us. The backlog is healthy. We discussed the upgrades, modernizations, retrofits delivery times there are longer than in the transactional part of the business. You were also asking about regions. I don't know if we can point out a specific region. It's generally the mining regions. One area to highlight when it comes to upgrades and modernizations is, of course, Australia and the iron ore-related modernization cycle that needs to happen and is happening there.
It's not only that, it's also in the other mining regions. Again, we believe we are in a very good position with the order book. Like I said, the full backlog growth is from minerals aftermarket order of magnitude EUR 200 million year-on-year growth there, and that will realize the revenues during the coming quarters.
Thank you very much. Maybe the second or follow-up was that I wanted to go back to your medium-term goal of 20% margins in Minerals. If we look, you've made a great step forward to the 17.6%, but it's still 240 basis points below your target. Equipment seems to be rising as a share of mix, which is normally something of a headwind. Perhaps you could walk through again the levers to get us back to the or get to the 20% with regard to pricing aftermarket efficiencies and what sort of timeframe to get there.
If we start from the timeframe, so our target is to deliver those margins both in minerals, aggregates, and as Metso by 2028. That's the timing we are looking. When it comes to levers, it's about growth, and specifically in aftermarket. We recognize that in capital side, it may be lumpier, especially orders to some extent also revenue recognition. Even the big projects, the revenue spans over six, eight, in some cases even 10 quarters. Will, to the point you are raising regarding the business mix between capital and aftermarket, not at all a major concern for us. The reason is simply that the margins are good to start with.
We have healthy capital business in minerals, and if we see volumes going up, which we, by the way, don't currently see because the order book has been built, whereas with aftermarket focus, that will give us volume leverage. We are also working with the portfolio optimization to sort of grow the higher margin solutions or businesses that we have within minerals, and then improve profitability in the areas where we lag behind our targets. Finally, self-help is also something we are doing. None of us will make miracles overnight, but the time horizon we have in mind is to deliver in line with these targets by 2028.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Panu Laitinmäki from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. I wanted to ask about SG&A costs. What was behind the increase we saw in Q1, and how should we think about ERP costs? Are the kind of ERP implementation costs over, and should you actually get the benefit from the new ERP system going forward?
Oh, thank you, Panu. The costs are up order of magnitude 3% in line with the inflation. Obviously, something we are not happy with. Our ambition is to offset the inflation. When it comes to, inflation is the main driver in the cost increases that we saw Q1 year on year. ERP specifically like Sami said, as part of his summary, the implementation is over. We have closed the implementation project, so the specific costs related to implementation, we had some still in Q1. Second quarter, we will not have those anymore. Going forward, we have a clean ride from that point of view. Now is the time to start harvesting benefits from the investment. It has been a massive project. It's a big change to our teams, but we see those efficiencies coming through.
Again, will not happen overnight, requires dedicated work, provides also opportunities to apply more new technologies. Everybody's talking about AI. We are also thinking and working with AI. It relates to ERP, but it relates to other things as well. A big investment and indeed, you are right, we need payback for that.
Thank you. Can I just ask, can you quantify what was the ERP implementation cost in Q1?
In Q1 we talk about EUR single-digit millions like we have had throughout the implementation phase. Second quarter last year, you may remember we had a bit accelerated or increased costs because that was the biggest sort of a go-live that we had. Other than that, EUR single-digit millions that we have had in P&L from that per quarter.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from David Farrell from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. Thanks very much for taking my question. I just wanted to circle back to one of the highlights of the period, which was the partnership with Loesche, and the VRM product, that you are pursuing there. Could you just give us a bit of extra detail around that? What is it looking to replace? What kind of market share do you think that gives you? Just any extra color around that would be great, please.
Thank you for that question. It's very new technology for the mining circuit, but we chose to partner with the market leader in other industry, mainly in cement, Loesche. What is this technology doing? First of all, it is dry grinding, and we all know that the new greenfield locations, they are quite challenging locations, not only with the infrastructure, but also when it comes with the supply of water. In that sense, this is going to be helping a lot for those future flow sheets in terms of not needing to have that amount of water in the minerals processing processes. Second clear benefit is that this is energy efficient way of doing the grinding. We talk about 40% less compared to the conventional grinding operations. Then as a cherry on the cake, you can also optimize the flow sheet.
Actually less equipment is going to be needed when the dry grinding is fully implemented in the flow sheet. We see a lot of positive elements here for making a difference in the mining operations.
Thank you. Just as a follow-up, when do you think we could perhaps see the first one of these orders be received by Metso?
It's an excellent question. Yeah.
Is it quarters, is it years?
This typically is a slow process from the perspective. Of course, we are more than happy to take the orders immediately. We are ready for that. It's a slow process because it first needs to get into the flow sheet, and then the process starts from the customer side to develop the project, get the financing, get the cost base, and so forth. Typically, it is some time from this kind of launch that we start to see the first orders. Teams are very engaged and there is a good interest towards this technology. We are waiting eagerly to see when we start to get the benefit of orders.
Okay, thanks. I'll turn it over and let someone else have a go before the end of our 50 minutes.
The next question comes from Mikael Doepel from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Very briefly, coming back to working capital, just one question on that. You talked about the reasons for the buildup there, but just wondering if you have any comments on the full year. Do you expect that to reverse in the second half? Thanks.
Thank you, Mikael. Like I said, in relative terms, we have an ambition to be in par or improve our performance over time on sort of a rolling basis. Not to repeat the working capital investment that we did in Q1. Again, if the business continues to grow in a significant way, it may be that in absolute terms, we need to invest more. I guess that's really what we can say at this stage.
Okay. Thank you.
All right. Thank you, everybody. As a final question, I have received a question from Edward Hussey of UBS by email. Ed is offline, but he wants to ask about operational leverage. He says that Metso delivered strong drop-through margin in Q1 despite equipment being a bit higher in the mix. What was the main driver of improvement across margins and what kind of drop-throughs should we think about going forward, specifically in minerals?
Okay. Thanks, Ed, for the question. I think we partly discussed this during one of the earlier questions, but the starting point is that we have healthy equipment margins. We had healthy equipment margins also in Q1 and even with this business mix, we're able to deliver a solid minerals margin. The gross margin uplift there is of course a function of price work, cost work, and that continues. We don't guide on margins, so can't give you an exact number there. What we expect, like we have also discussed, is the aftermarket order backlog to realize the revenues and aftermarkets continues to have higher margin than the capital. That will also support us going forward.
All right. Thank you. We have spent exactly 50 minutes, so thanks for being efficient. Thanks for your questions. Thanks for participating. We conclude here. Just a reminder that half year review will be out on July 24th, but we hope to see many of you in the meantime in various events. Thanks again and goodbye.
Thank you.
Thank you.