Welcome to Robit Oyj's Q2 and H1 2025 Results Webcast. My name is Arto Halonen, I'm CEO of Robit Oyj. I'm here with Ari Suokas, our CFO. We are using a chat functionality in this webcast, so throughout the presentation, feel free to post questions through the chat, and we will then have a Q&A session at the end of the presentation where we will cover the questions that we have received. Here's a standard disclaimer about the forward-looking statements. The second quarter was a challenging one for us. Orders decreased by 18%. The decline was driven by, in the Down-the-Hole (DTH) segment, through the major supply contract that ended mid-last year and was still impacting the comparison period numbers.
On the other hand, in the geotechnical segment, the demand, the project activity was still weak, and also the timing of the project was such that we did not see major orders for quarter two. In DTH Hammer also, the major orders were not received in quarter two, despite the fact that the running basic business is doing okay on the DTH Hammer side. Market demand as such remained at a good level in the mining market, but the construction market was still weak. The, let's say, anticipated recovery in the construction market is still on an, let's say, uncertain ground. Net sales dropped by 20.4%. In constant currencies, 17.8%. All in all, currencies played a major role in the results for the quarter.
Our EBIT declined to EUR -600,000 from EUR +700,000 on a comparison period, and this was largely coming from exchange rate losses, which accounted for the quarter EUR 900,000. For the first half of the year, the losses from currencies accounted for EUR 1.4 million, so they have really played a major role in the profitability development during this year. Positive development we saw in improved gross margin. The many initiatives we have had to improve our product competitiveness, also to control pricing, they are paying dividends and showing an improved gross margin. We are seeing in the first half of the year the improvement on gross margin both in money terms as well as naturally then in a relative basis. Also, the reduced freight costs have had a positive impact on the gross margin development for the quarter and for the first half of the year.
Due to the challenging situation in the market and declining sales, we also initiated a change program to renew the operating model and target savings. We are targeting through this program EUR 2 million annual savings, basically from employee-related costs. The majority of the actions related to this change program have already been implemented, and the final actions will be implemented by the end of quarter three. We expect roughly an EUR +800,000 impact through this change program for 2025. Cash flow from operations remained relatively stable during the quarter, resulting in EUR +1.8 million . We were able to turn during the quarter the development in inventories. Still, at the end of the first quarter, we had too high inventory levels, but the trend was clearly turned then during the second quarter of the year.
There is still a lot of work remaining on that front, but we already took good steps forward in that front during the second quarter. On the sustainability targets, there's steady progress towards our targets, and one key highlight is this CO2 emission intensity where we are now 44.8% below the benchmark year, which is 2020 for us. We saw a further 5% decline and progress towards the target during the first half of the year. Our target is to halve the emission intensity by year 2030. If you look a bit closer at the first half and development there, in constant currencies, our net sales have dropped 12.2%. In DTH Hammer, they declined 3.6%. DTH Hammer also had a weaker second quarter, as mentioned. No major orders are delivered where time to second quarter.
All in all, the basic business in DTH Hammer is running well, and there are also some new customers that are then being ramped up during the third quarter of the year. In the whole, we've seen a large decline in sales in the first half of the year. It's 40.1% coming from this, largely coming, or you could say more or less all coming from this one major contract that has ended in the Down-the-Hole segment. On a positive note, we were able to secure new customers in the Down-the-Hole segment, including one major supply agreement in Africa, where then deliveries are being ramped up towards the end of quarter three and then full impact in quarter four. Geotechnical net sales have decreased by 16.7% during the first half of the year.
The construction market has still been weak, and that has impacted heavily on the geotechnical market and the competition in the projects, as there are fewer out there, remains quite tight. EBIT, year to date, we are pretty much at zero. The decrease is EUR 1.7 million to 2024. Out of this, EUR 1.4 million comes again from the exchange rate losses. We have the change program ongoing, as mentioned, most of the actions implemented that will then impact positively the profitability during the second half of the year and full impact in 2026. Also, what gives us good foundation is the improved gross margin levels, and that is then supporting our profitability development for the second half of the year. Cash flow from operations is EUR -0.3 million, but as mentioned, we saw clear improvement in the second quarter.
Sequentially, there's a good improvement as a result of turning the trend in the inventory development. We looked at sales development by market area. Asia has been the best performing market area for us this year. We have delivered a small growth, which is a good result as Asia is a very construction-driven market. We've won a lot of tunneling projects, especially in Korea, during the year. For some of those, deliveries have started already. For many of them, deliveries will then start the second quarter, second half of the year. Australia remains to be challenging for us, and we are working hard to recover the sales from the lost accounts. EMEA sales have declined 7%.
The mining market and the mining segment demand and sales have been developing better in the area, but obviously, the construction market remains weak, and there is also a fairly construction-heavy sales area for us, EMEA, and that has impacted the sales for this year. Americas, we've seen a 6% decline this year. On a positive note, in the Down-the-Hole segment, we've seen growth in Americas, and Americas, especially North America, is one of the focus areas we have for the Down-the-Hole segment, and good to see that some results are coming from the strong sales actions we have put there, especially on the quarry and construction segment. The tariff situation has always obviously created uncertainty in the market, but in quarter two, it did not have a major impact on the net sales.
The good thing is that the situation has been now clarified, at least for the time being. When it comes to the sustainability goals, I already mentioned this CO2 emission intensity reduction. That's a great highlight on this front. Another highlight is the improved safety performance. The consistent work on proactive safety work is now also visible on the LTIF development. LTIF was 2.7 for the first half of the year. 2.7 in our numbers means basically one incident that resulted in lost time. Good progress there. It's obviously constant work that needs to continue. We have also continued on the innovation and offering renewal front. The recent product launches we have had is the Robit MBIT series. It's a really revolutionary drilling concept, especially to the surface drilling market, and it's providing our customers straighter holes, safer operations, and a longer lifetime of the drilling gears.
All these results, all in all, to CO2 reductions and more sustainable drilling operations. We've also launched a marathon version of our H-series hammer family. With the marathon series, our customers are able to get an even longer lifetime out of their H-series hammers, providing another great alternative and option for our customer base. Now I'll hand it over to Ari. Ari will cover the financials more in detail.
Thank you, Arto. Let's start with the Q2 figures. As mentioned by Arto, our net sales in Q2 decreased by 20.4% to EUR 19.6 million. The decrease came mainly from EMEA, but also from Australia with a lost customer there last year. In Q2 2025, EBITDA decreased to 1.9%, and our EBIT percentage in Q2 2025 decreased to 3.1%. Our Q2 2025 result of the period decreased and was EUR 1.2 million. Exchange rate losses were significant during the review period, weakening our profitability. Here, the major impact has been the falling U.S. dollar. Q2 2025 net working capital development, as Arto mentioned, our net working capital improved in Q2 2025 compared to Q1. When we look at the comparison to last year Q2, we see that the net working capital increased by EUR 3 million and totaled EUR 41.8 million. Our inventories remained flat at EUR 36.4 million.
Receivables decreased to EUR 18.1 million, and payables decreased to EUR 12.7 million. With our receivables, we see our good work with the collections, but also we see the impact of declined sales. Net working capital percentage of last 12 months' sales was 49.7%. Q2 2025 cash flow, our cash flow before changes in net working capital was EUR 1 million. Our operating cash flow was EUR 1.8 million. Cash flow from investing activities was , EUR -0.3 million, and cash flow from financing activities resulted in EUR -2.5 million . Our final cash position, briefly, cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q2 2025 were EUR 7.6 million. Our total interest-bearing loans and utilized credit limits were EUR 28.4 million, and this included IFRS 16 lease liabilities of EUR 3.9 million. Our capital structure, net debt increased and was EUR 20.8 million, and net debt to 12 months rolling EBITDA was EUR 4.47 million at the end of Q2.
We expect to have a level more close to 3 at the end of the year, so we are pretty confident that our actions with the operating model changes will have a positive impact here, impacting also this key figure. Our equity ratio remains strong at 50.7%. Loan maturities, loans from financial institutions at the end of Q2 2025 totaled EUR 24.5 million. We renewed our finance agreement in June, and that new agreement will be ending mid-2030. The new agreement enables us to support the growth, and we renewed and refinanced the existing loan base, but also created the possibility to invest in future growth and support the working capital fluctuation. Senior loan amortizations are EUR 1.5 million biannually in June and December, and the company has an interest rate swap of EUR 10 million, which took effect on July 25 and ends on June 30, 2030. Now back to you, Arto.
Thank you, Ari. Focus areas for 2025 continue to be the same as we have had. The back-to-growth track is clearly the number one theme that the teams are working on in DTH Hammer Geotechnical, driving through product renewal, new product launches, as well as channel expansion that we are working on. Down-the-Hole, as mentioned, really the focus markets we have are North America, Australia, Africa, and good to see that there are some positive results that we expect to see in the figures, especially in the second half of the year. As mentioned, new customers won in North America, especially Africa, and we'll expect some ramp-up of the business in the second half of the year. On the supply chain front, we are improving our end-to-end supply chain planning process.
That work has been ongoing throughout the year, and the target here is that it will improve our profitability through a more stable supply chain, less freight costs, and also that will stabilize our cash flow. I think we've seen results out of this in H1 as a result of a significantly lower air freight cost compared to 2024 levels. Product competitiveness, we continue to drive with new products, new innovations that we bring to the market, but also we have focused dedicated programs to also improve the competitiveness of our existing offering so that we are able to do profitable business in all of our target markets. Some of these initiatives on this product competitiveness front are already visible in the improved gross margin that I mentioned earlier.
We did update our guidance for the year in July, so we estimate for 2025 that our net sales will decline compared to 2024, and also our comparable EBIT profitability in euros will stay at the same level or decline compared to 2024 levels.
Thank you. This was the presentation part, and then we will turn to the questions that have come through the chat. Feel free to post the questions as we start going through them. I will read the questions out loud, and I'll let you, Arto, reply to these ones, especially the first ones. First one coming from Aapeli. In your market outlook, you expect the construction industry to develop positively in the second half of 2025. Do you see any positive indicators that you would confirm this as it's already almost?
Yeah. We did mention also in our report that we see kind of risks in this anticipated recovery. I think the market is still, if you look at the construction market, is still polarized in that sense that we are still lacking this kind of a constant baseline demand that comes especially from the housing sector. There are then these kind of bigger infrastructure projects where we see quotation activity and projects moving forward. Obviously, those types of projects are easier than postponed, so there's delays in the projects, and that brings uncertainty. It is a bit binary in that sense. There's lots of infrastructure projects progressing, but on the other hand, still the underlying housing-driven or building construction-driven market is missing, and there's only weak signs of recovery there.
Thank you, Arto. Two other questions also from Aapeli.
You mentioned that decreasing net sales from EMEA can partly do with the distributors' high stock levels. Did this happen during Q2, and what is the estimate of how long it will take to normalize?
Yeah. Our distributors also behave a bit differently. Some place fewer but larger stock orders a couple of times a year. During quarter two, these orders, they were, you could say, lower than typically, especially in the EMEA area. Let's see, obviously, it depends on the final end customer demand, how do we see it. You could say that we don't expect that this situation is long-lasting, and what we are doing is actively working with the specific distributors then, obviously, to support together, winning new customers that will then generate also the consumption of their inventory and eventually orders to Robit.
Thank you, Arto.
The following questions I will combine since these are related to the same topic. How has the change program developed outside Finland? Could you briefly go through the main points of the program, and how is it possible at the same time to strengthen sales resources and to reduce annual personnel cost by EUR 2 million?
Yeah. The majority of the actions also outside of Finland have been completed as of today, especially if we look at the financial impact. You could say that 90% out of the financial impact, the actions related to those have already been completed. When it comes to what we have to do, we have to have these saving initiatives to secure our profitability levels. At the same time, we have to invest into our growth.
We are doing selected investments through sales resources, as an example, on the market areas where we see best possibilities for profitable growth. These investments have been factored into this program all in all.
Are there any more questions? I don't see any more questions through the chat. That was the last question.
If no further questions, we will end this webcast here. Thank you very much for joining.
Thank you.