Hello and a warm welcome to the Epiroc Q3 results presentation. My name is Karin Larsson, Head of IR and Media here at Epiroc. By my side I have our CEO Helena Hedblom and our CFO Håkan Folin. As always, they will briefly present the results before we do a Q&A session. You know the drill. Helena, please, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Karin. Also from my side, a very warm welcome to all of you. Before we dive into the numbers, I want to begin with something that lies at the heart of everything we do: safety. The past few months have been a sad reminder that mining remains a dangerous industry. One incident that stands out is the ground fall at the Red Chris mine in British Columbia in Canada this July. Three workers were trapped 280 m underground, and within just 24 hours, Epiroc was called in to deploy our RCT Teleremote Automation Kit on a non-Epiroc loader. We did it, and the machine was then operated remotely, digging through collapsed ground toward the refuge station. After more than 60 hours underground, all three miners were safely rescued. This moment is a powerful testament that fast action, automation, and collaboration can save lives.
At the end of the day, the best thing that comes out of a mine is the miner. During the quarter, we celebrated several important milestones. Since I just shared an example around safety, let me highlight three more that underscore our leadership in this area. First, we reached a major breakthrough at Hancock Iron Ore Roy Hill mine in Australia. All 78 mining trucks, non-Epiroc ones, have now been converted from manual operation to fully autonomous using Epiroc's Link OA solution. This is a great achievement which really positions Epiroc at the forefront of mixed fleet automation globally. My second highlight is our strategic partnership with Hindustan Zinc Ltd. The world's largest integrated zinc producer awarded us a large contract for a collision avoidance system in the quarter. All of their mines in India will in the future be equipped with our collision avoidance system.
As with most of our solutions, it is OEM-agnostic, designed to work seamlessly across any vehicle platform, and is a cost-effective way to significantly enhance safety across existing fleets. Thirdly, I would also like to mention the celebration of our Pit Viper drill rig turning 25 successful years, with a full decade of autonomous drilling. The rig has revolutionized surface drilling by combining power, safety, and energy efficiency. With over 90 million m drilled autonomously and significant emission reductions, the Pit Viper has set a new benchmark for sustainable and productive mining operations worldwide. Turning to the customer activity then in Q3, the demand in mining remained high, especially within exploration, and after a prolonged period of subdued demand for construction-related attachments, we're now seeing a small recovery in order intake as the destocking phase nears completion.
On the financial side, our operating margin declined primarily due to tariffs and costs relating to efficiency measures. That said, the actions we've taken, particularly within tools and attachments, are beginning to show positive results, and Håkan will elaborate on EBIT and margin development shortly. Finally, I'm also pleased to report that our operating cash flow increased by 38% in the quarter to SEK 2.5 billion, supported by an improvement in working capital. Looking into the details on the orders in Q3, in total, orders received decreased 2%, hampered by currency which impacted with - 9%. In total, our orders amounted to SEK 15.1 billion and the organic order growth was 7%. Despite tough comparisons of + 6% in the previous year that reflects a high mining activity, we achieved the strongest order growth in equipment, tools, and exploration.
Large mining equipment orders, which are lumpy in nature, amounted to SEK 600 million. It's encouraging also in this quarter to see that many of our equipment orders include our latest technologies both in automation and electrification, leading to higher productivity, increased safety, reduced energy consumption, and a lower total cost of ownership for our customers. We now see a recovery in the order intake for attachments as the destocking phase is largely complete, and that is both in Western Europe as well as in the U.S. Sequentially, compared to the previous quarter, orders received were unchanged organically. Let me turn to innovation where we continue to lead the way, and I will start with Powerbit X, a revolutionary drill bit fortified with diamond protection. At a remote gold mine in Canada, Machine Rogers International has tested our diamond-coated Powerbit X with outstanding results.
Bit life increased from just 5- 10 m to over 700 m, boosting productivity by 125% per shift. Monthly bit usage dropped from 70 to just 12, and with no need for regrinding, carbon emissions fell by 90% per drill meter. As autonomous drilling becomes more and more important globally, the demand for high performance drill bits such as the Powerbit X is essential to unlock new levels of productivity and sustainability. I would also like to give you some more information about our collaboration with Hancock Iron Ore Roy Hill mine in Australia because it truly is a unique achievement. All 78 haul trucks have now been converted to fully autonomous operation, creating the world's largest OEM-agnostic automated mine. The non-Epiroc fleet is operating seamlessly under Epiroc's automation system, and the real-time traffic management is handled remotely from an operations center located 1,100 km away in Perth.
To date, this autonomous fleet has safely moved over 250 million tons of material and traveled more than 6 million km, which corresponds to going around the globe 150 x. The final phase of the project is on track for completion by year end. To deliver these high-end mixed fleet automation projects, you need the highest connectivity quality, and that we have managed with the help of Radlink, a fully owned connectivity provider. In Q3, we recognized $300 million in revenues from this project, and we expect recurring revenues going forward. After years of development and learning, we are confident that this solution is both productive and safe, and we are now ready to scale to more mines. Let me share a video of our Link OA offering.
The future of autonomous haulage is here. Link OA for Haulage is the OEM-agnostic automation solution designed to maximize efficiency, flexibility, and performance in mixed fleets. Automation shouldn't limit your fleet choices. Link OA works with any haul truck regardless of OEM and is backed by a retrofit experience across dozens of makes and models. It offers the flexibility to scale without locking mining operations into a single truck supplier, whether you're upgrading existing fleets at brownfield sites or deploying new trucks at greenfield operations. Beyond automating trucks, this technology creates new opportunities in mine design by enabling narrower roads, tighter switchbacks, and optimized intersection choreography. Link OA helps unlock more aggressive and efficient layout, ultimately improving site productivity. Link OA for Haulage is optimized to meet demanding KPIs, maximizing truck availability, improving productivity, and reducing costs to support aggressive business cases for autonomy.
Epiroc is committed to delivering high performance in real mining environments, even those that are less than perfect. Built for the toughest mining environments, Link OA for Haulage performs reliably in extreme heat, sub-zero temperatures, and rugged terrain, all while meeting prevailing safety standards. With high system availability and minimal unplanned downtime, it keeps your operation productive under pressure. With nearly two decades of mining automation, Link OA for Haulage has driven millions of km autonomously and hauled hundreds of millions of tons. It's a proven leader, delivering reliability and results at scale.
Our aftermarket revenues accounted for 66% of total revenues in the quarter, with the tools and attachments representing a growing share of the mix. The strong demand from the mining sector continued to drive solid revenue growth across both tools and service for attachment. We see that the destocking phase is nearing completion, which is encouraging, but it's still low levels and the second half of the year is typically seasonally weaker for our construction customers. Moving on to operational excellence, we continue to take actions to strengthen our resilience and drive profitable growth. Our tariff mitigation strategy includes optimizing logistics and distribution flows, leveraging our global manufacturing footprint, and adjusting our supplier base, including key inputs like steel. Of course, we're also implementing price increases to compensate. We are consolidating production sites with particularly strong progress in our attachment division and the closure of our Essen facility.
The transfer of production to Kalmar is well underway. Kalmar has now emerged as a central hub for brake production with state-of-the-art technology and automation. In parallel, we are investing in Nashik in India to create a global production and R&D hub for equipment, both surface and underground. The new facility will include production halls, prototyping labs, and outdoor test tracks. This investment aligns with our Make in India strategy and strengthens our presence in a key growth region. Another measure that we take to improve efficiency is to consolidate several of our customer centers into larger regions. As we announced in September, we have implemented business areas. Equipment and Service is led by Jess Kindler, and Tools and Attachment is under the leadership of José Manuel Sanchez. The business areas will increase customer focus further and secure the strategic direction of Epiroc going forward.
Moving on to our sustainability performance on safety, I'm pleased to report that our total recordable injury frequency rate improved yet again and is now 4.1%, down from 4.4%. This reflects the strong engagement across Epiroc to safety. We ended the quarter with about 19,000 employees, and of our workforce, women now represent 20.3% and our managers, women represent 24.9%. Both metrics are up meaningfully since last year. On the environmental side, our CO2e emissions from operations increased by 7%, primarily due to expansion of operations and reduced availability of renewable energy. Our transport-related emissions rose by 2%, driven by higher delivery volumes. While these increases are not where we want to be, they are a direct result of our growth and we remain committed to reducing our footprint going forward.
Also in the quarter, Epiroc was awarded a gold medal by Ecovadis, placing us in the top 2% globally among more than 150,000 rated companies. This recognition reflects our strong performance in sustainability, ethics, labor practices, and procurement. With this, I invite Håkan to speak about the financials.
Thank you, Helena. Our revenues in the quarter decreased 3% to SEK 15.2 billion, which is corresponding to an organic increase of 5% and currency impacted negatively by 8%. The aftermarket represented 66% of revenues in the quarter, which is 1 percentage point lower than in the comparing period. The meaningful difference is however for service where we have 2 percentage point lower revenues this year compared to the previous period, which is then a negative mix impact. The operating profit. Our EBIT was SEK 2.8 billion and it includes item affecting comparability of SEK 94 million. These are mainly related to efficiency measures we are taking. The change in provision for the share based long term incentive program was rather small at SEK 1 million. The adjusted operating margin decreased from 19.7%- 19.0% and the margin was negatively impacted by tariffs.
We worked hard to mitigate the negative effect of tariffs, as Helena just told you. That said, still the net estimated effect on the margin in the quarter was roughly half a percentage point. On group level, the EBITDA impact from currency was negative in absolute terms -SEK 230 million. It was actually positive with 0.2 percentage points on the margin. This is mainly due to that we have some revaluation of internal profits. If we then move on to equipment and service. For this segment, orders amounted to SEK 11.4 billion, corresponding to a 6% organic increase. Also here we have the negative currency impact 9%. For this segment, there was a strong underlying growth within equipment. It was + 10% organic. The large orders, and we define them as above SEK 100 million. They were SEK 600 million in the quarter.
We can compare this with Q3 last year when they were actually SEK 1.4 billion. So SEK 800 million difference there. The large orders are, as we always say, they are lumpy in nature. When we look ahead, we see many interesting projects and tenders that we are involved in. Service had an organic increase of 2% with the strongest growth achieved within what we call our traditional service operations and within digital. Specifically, we achieved good growth in our safety solution which is an area within digital that comes with high gross margins. That is pleasing to see for us. If we look at it sequentially, orders received were flat organically for the segment. If we then look into revenues for equipment and service, we achieved SEK 11.5 billion, which corresponds to an organic growth over 6% and again a negative currency impact 9% on the revenues.
Equipment revenues were strong, increased 10% organically. Service revenues increased 3% organically. We recognized revenues from the Roy Hill project around SEK 300 million in the quarter and that is diluting to the margin. This is, as we have talked about many times before, an innovation project. We are very happy with the milestones we have achieved. Another thing that impacted margin negatively was reduced customer activity in the nickel segment. If we compare year to date with the same period last year, we have lost about half of our business in nickel due to many mines being under care and maintenance. That means they are not producing at the moment. EBIT in total amounted to SEK 2.4 billion. That includes SEK 101 million in items affecting comparability in cost for mainly efficiency measures.
Last year we had a net of plus SEK 208 million in items affecting comparability because we had a positive revaluation effect of shares of ASI Mining and also impairments of intangible assets. If we move instead to the right-hand side of the slide, we have the Adjusted EBIT which was SEK 2.5 billion, corresponding to a margin of 21.9%, down from 22.9% last year. We have a similar margin pattern here as for group with tariffs burdening both EBIT and also margin in a meaningful way. FX is similar as it is for the group as we talked about before. We have a lower portion of service this year which then impacts the mix. If we then move on to the business area Tools and Attachment, orders received increased 1% in total. If we look at it organically, they were up 8% to SEK 3.7 billion.
Currency on the other hand impacted negatively here as well by 8%. The growth was mainly driven by mining demand which was translated into a strong tools demand, also following a prolonged period of low demand for attachments used in construction work. We are now seeing a small recovery in the order intake. It's not really because underlying demand has increased, but the destocking phase among distributors is now largely complete. Sequentially, orders received were flat, positive growth within mining attachment. Seasonally weak revenues for Tools and Attachment increased 4% organically and amounted to SEK 3.7 billion. Operating profit, our EBIT, increased 2% to SEK 436 million. That corresponds to a margin of 11.8%, which is up from 11.3% last year. We see that the efficiency measures we have taken, especially within attachment, are starting to yield results.
The positive effects from these are compensating more than fully for the increased cost we are getting from tariffs within this business area. The Adjusted EBIT margin increased to 11.6%. We also had some small positive amounts where we were reversing some cost for previous restructuring measures. All in all, a good trend when it comes to T&A. For margin, we continue to demonstrate strong cost control across the organization, administration, marketing, and R&D. The expenses were lower both year-on-year and sequentially. That, of course, is a strong focus internally to have operational efficiency. Net financial items came in at -SEK 236 million versus SEK 264 million last year. Interest net improved to -SEK 181 million, and that was -SEK 250 million in the previous year.
For taxes, we had a tax expense at SEK 630 million, which is then an effective tax rate of 23.9%, which is still within the range we have indicated of 22%- 24%. This slide shows our operating cash flow. It increased by 38% to SEK 2.5 billion, up from SEK 1.8 billion last year. We had a positive impact by lower working capital tied up and also lower taxes paid in the quarter. The cash conversion rate, which we measure on a rolling 12-month basis, was at the end of the quarter 105% compared to 88% at the same quarter last year. Coming to working capital, if we compare to the previous year, our net working capital decreased by 7% now to SEK 22.6 billion. Excluding the effect of acquisitions and currency, net working capital increased slightly, mainly due to increased receivables.
We have put, and we are putting, a lot of effort into being more efficient, especially when it comes to inventory. Despite having a strong organic growth in equipment this year, we have actually improved here. We see that the average net working capital in relation to revenues in the last 12 months has decreased from 38%- 37%. That is obviously something that makes me as a CFO glad to see. My last slide for today is on capital efficiency. Our Net Debt decreased to SEK 11.1 billion. It was down from SEK 15.2 billion last year, supported by the strong cash generation that I showed previously. We do maintain a solid financial position. We have a Net Debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.5. One year ago that was 0.97.
Our return on capital employed was 19.3%. It is down from 21.5%, explained by higher intangible assets, including goodwill, and also lower profit. With that, over to you again, Helena.
Thank you, Håkan . To summarize the quarter, our focus on safety has made us into the safety leader in our initiatives. We have several good examples in the quarter, with the most meaningful being the successful rescue of workers after 60 hours in a collapsed mine. We're also glad to provide all Hindustan Zinc Ltd. mines with collision avoidance systems. We have shown that we are the mixed fleet automation leader with a key milestone achieved in the Roy Hill project. The iconic Pit Viper drill rig has set the benchmark for sustainable and productive mining operations worldwide. The organic order growth of 7% reflects a high mining activity and that the destocking phase within attachments largely is complete, and the actions taken in tools and attachments are yielding results. Our strong operating cash flow gives us financial flexibility to invest both organically and inorganically moving forward.
We have a strong cash flow and Epiroc stands strong to capture growth. With more than 60% of our mining orders deriving from gold and copper mines, and with an increasing willingness by the industry to invest in both existing and new mines, exploration demand specifically has increased. We have never had a stronger offering than we have today. In the near term we expect mining demand to remain high, while demand from construction customers is expected to be stable at a low level. Thank you.
Thank you, Helena. Thank you, Håkan. Well done. It's almost time to move into the Q and A session, but before we start, I would like to share a quick note. On June 8 to 9, next year, 2026, we will host our Capital Markets Day in Örebro in Sweden. This year we are actually planning for something special. Get ready to create lasting memories. We will issue a press release once the registration opens, but I recommend you mark the dates in the calendar already now. Also, so you know, Volvo will host their Capital Markets Day on June 10 in Eskilstuna, and that's just one hour away from Örebro. We will coordinate the logistics to make it easy and worthwhile for you to attend both events. Now let's begin with the Q and A session.
I know you're eager, but please keep it to one question at a time and operator, you may open the line. Thank you.
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 Christian Hinderaker from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning everyone. Thanks for the opportunity to raise some questions. I want to start on the margins if I can. You've been taking some cost actions here, but if I look back, I think we've now had maybe, absent the last quarter of Q2, 11 quarters of year-on-year decline in profitability. I guess as we look ahead to the next 12 months, I'm curious as we should expect a positive or rather accelerating bridge effect from those cost savings or are we at full run rate in terms of the cost saving impact in the bridge today?
I think that you know we have taken a number of efficiency measures during many quarters now, including consolidation of sites. I think we, you know, of course it's just a portion of that that we have in the results in the quarter. I think you can expect that more of this will be shown in the coming quarters ahead.
Thank you, Helena. Maybe just on the nickel market, I'm a little bit surprised at the impact on the business there. If I'm not mistaken, I think that's around 1% of your commodity mix. Maybe I have the wrong figures.
Yeah.
Can you help us understand that? Is this effectively service led? That is, you've got service contract on these sites and obviously unable to book revenue. How do we think about the potential path, I guess, back to full operations there? Any other color would be helpful.
We have seen it during quite many, many quarters now that the nickel mines have a challenge and you know towards several of these mines we had service contracts. The impact is mainly, I would say, on service and of course that means that we will have to ramp down operation and do a lot of, or say, mitigating actions to compensate for that. That is mainly, you know, so it's, it has been ongoing for quite some time. We see it, you know, and of course I think you know this is quite normal when prices are low, that customers put part of the mines in care maintenance or they lower their output levels.
Exposure was more close to 3%. That's why if we get a bigger hit on 3%, it is of course more meaningful than if 1%.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi Helena and Håkan. I'm Klas, Citi. My first one is on the drop through in E now. Equipment sales is growing faster than service, so that is one negative drag. You're highlighting tariffs, then product mix, which is nickel, which you just touched on, and then it seems like $300 million of sales linked to Roy Hill was more than dilutive as well. Quite a lot of negatives. What I'm first trying to understand is, in Roy Hill, I was under the impression that mixed fleet automation was a pretty good margin relative to, rather than your connectivity business. Is this just temporary? Should margin improve from here and from when? Also, on the sort of general mix within service, parts and kits, nickel as you alluded to is a small part.
Why is parts and kits not growing more, helping the mix, given that you have almost a 40% margin in that business and given the strong activity at the miners? Thank you.
If we look, I start with the Roy Hill. Yes. This, you know, of course, you know, this will be a very profitable business long term when we do a development project like this when we nail the technology. Of course we have quite a lot of R&D expenses related to a product like this. I think this is, you know, you should see this as a one-time thing that is dilutive because when we scale, and this was the same thing when we rolled out automation for our own equipment many, many years ago. Mixfit automation is a profitable business, you know, both underground and it will be a profitable business on surface as well. When it comes to parts and service, we have a negative impact then on the activity levels in nickel.
I wouldn't say that there is, you know, when it comes to the growth, growth of parts, that is very much, you know, our own ability to capture the customer share. I would say it does, it's not, it's not related so much to the activity level. Of course it can be a little bit related to where the fleet are from an age perspective, if it's larger component rebuilds, etc. I think it's more our ability to capture the customer share of our own machines. I wouldn't say that it's so well correlated to the, let's say, activity level as such. Of course this is where we are working hard with our strategies to continue the growth journey we have had for many, many years when it comes to growing parts as well.
Yeah. The reason why I ask, Helena, is that parts and kits, according to your capital market data, back up currency middle 1921-23, and part of that was probably overordering, good pricing, and then it went negative in 2024. Since then, it hasn't really recovered. I appreciate nickel is used as an example, but it's such a small part of the business. That's why I'm asking why kits are not accelerating given that your peers are basically growing that low double digit at the moment.
Thank you.
No, I think it's more related to our own fleet. Also, of course, you know that we have not been as successful the previous quarters when it comes to growing our customer share. That is, as it has been for many, many years, a strong focus area for us to continue to grow the parts business.
Okay, quick follow up on the tariff impact. About 50 basis points net impact in the quarter, section 232 on steel and aluminum started from August 18. You probably had some inventory covering you through August and September. It would be helpful to know if you think the 50 basis points net impact of the margin will increase from here into the fourth quarter. Thank you.
We expect that the net impact will come down in Q4, but we have been impacted because a lot of the mitigating actions we have taken, it takes some months to get it right of course. Also, when it comes to price increases, but also redirecting of flow, changing suppliers, etc. We expect the impact to be lower in Q4.
Absolute final one for you, Håkan. You said that in TNA the positive effects from the savings are fully compensated from the impact of the tariffs in TNA. Is the group comment of 50 basis points very geared to ENS on the margin or how should I read that comment? Thank you.
No, no, you shouldn't read it like that. We have tariffs impact definitely for tools entitlement as well, quite a lot. Given that we are due, we started with efficiency measures earlier in attach, especially on the attachment side given that that dropped, what is it now, two years ago. It's more that we see more impact from the efficiency measures in TNA and therefore they are able to offset the tariffs. It does not mean that we have lower impact of tariffs in TNA.
All right. Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from John Kim from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about the cadence and delivery in the ENS to business business over the next year or so. I know there's a lot of good efforts on automation and digitization. I'm wondering when we're going to see positive mix effects there, and if you could also extend that comment to aftermarket when you see that mix normalizing. Thank you.
I think we see that when I look at the orders received and I think I've said that in many of the calls here in the quarters that more and more of the orders include higher degree of sophisticated machines. It's with different type of automation or different type of fossil free machines and of course that, over time, when that translates into revenue, that will have a positive impact for us. The more advanced machines we're putting on the market, that both helps the equipment margin of course, but it also helps us to capture a larger share in the aftermarket because these are much more advanced machines also to serve and we have a good correlation in how much we capture when it comes to the aftermarket of the more advanced machines. For us it's very good.
The more advanced machines we're pushing out in the market, that is good for us long term.
If I could do a quick follow on. In terms of tariff impacts in 232, how should we think about Q3 versus Q4? Is it fair to say that some of the Q3 sales were booked out of things out of inventory, perhaps at lower costs? Thanks.
Not so much. I would say so. I think we expect the impact on tariffs to go down in Q4 because we have been quick in adjusting prices, redirecting flows, as well as changing suppliers. We expect it to trend down now in Q4. Some of the tariffs also between the U.S. and Canada that impacted in Q3 will not be there now moving forward. This is of course a very evolving landscape. As it looks like right now, if the tariff stays as is, we expect it to go down.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Michael Harlows from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the presentation and for taking our questions. I was wondering if I could ask you one on R&D. It looks like this has come down significantly and I was wondering if this is maybe an active decision to protect margins. Another one would be on tariffs. If you could explain to us if the hit is on components or on finished products, that would be great. Thank you.
I can start with the question. If you compare Q3 this year with Q3 last year, in Q3 last year we did impairment of intangible related to some acquisitions and those were booked on the R&D line. That's why you, and that was more than SEK 300 million if I remember correctly, I think was close to SEK 350 million. When you compare Q3 last year with Q3 this year, that's the main reason for the explanation. No, we have not slowed down R&D in order to secure margin. We're investing as much as ever within R&D.
If we look on the tariffs, they are impacting both finished products. If we take machines, it was equipment, they're impacting components, so spare parts, they are impacting consumables as well as attachments. It's across all different products but in different ways. Where of course we have high steel content, then that has an impact, like consumables for example, or attachments.
If I may ask a follow up, when you put your prices up, does that put you at a competitive disadvantage versus your competitors or not?
No, I wouldn't say so because we have a very, what to say, similar manufacturing footprint, all of us. If I look on all the global OEMs, and there's not that many players that are positioned in the U.S. in a different way, we have a strong footprint in the U.S. already with both consumables and, of course, with attachment manufacturing as well as equipment manufacturing. I wouldn't say that we have a disadvantage in any way.
That was very helpful.
The next question comes from Rory Smith from Oxcap. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning, Helena. Good morning, Håkan. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to come back to this services growth. I guess I was a little surprised to see only sort of 2% organic growth there in ENS, particularly given where commodity prices are. I guess your answer to Klas' question was sort of don't read too much into activity levels or commodity prices at least and it's more around customer share or winning share of customer wallet. In that case, could you just sort of update us on the actions that you've taken to sort of either recover or improve that in recent quarters and how that positions you for 2026 and if we could, how we should think about service growth going into 2026, that would be helpful.
Thank you.
When we look at developing the service and parts and service business in general, it's a lot about having the supply chain in place with high availability of the parts, making sure we have the best service technicians out there, but also that we are more tailoring our offering because different customer types need different type of value proposition. This could be anything from developing our products and our offering, but also to develop other channels to get a better reach. For some of the segments, if we take for example the construction segments where we have a big share also of equipment there, it's a different value proposition needed to capture that growth.
Of course, it's a lot about making sure that we are efficient in our service operation and that we have many years with very successful growth in our service business, and that's due to the different strategies that we have implemented over the years. We are continuing to implement these strategies and continue to. I think the regional focus for us when it comes to our setup in parts and solutions service also gives us even more better understanding of to who we are losing that other part to because this is local players that are doing things in a different way. We need to make sure that we can beat them and to have an offering that is competitive to these local mom and pop shops.
That's helpful.
Thank you.
If I could just squeeze in a follow up, the outlook for the outlook, you said construction customers expected to be stable at a low level, but the orders there in TNA obviously up high single digits and you're calling the end of destocking. I think you did answer it in a previous question. Just any color there on the outlook, why that kind of is a little bit more cautious than what the quarter might imply.
We are more cautious because we don't see that the activity level out there. If we look on the activity level in the market, we don't see that that is picking up yet. However, for us that means a higher order intake because this destocking phase has come to an end. That is good because what has impacted our results over the last two years is, you know, under absorption in our factories due to that, you know, inventory reduction on top of then a lower activity level. It is positive for us because that gives us, it helps us with absorption in the factories. We see that already we have better, better load in our factories now in the attachment division.
The underlying demand, that's what we expect to remain low at a stable level. What we have seen now in Q3 and we expect Q4 is that the apparent demand, what the dealers and distributor are buying, that is now at a higher level than it was before. Overall, we don't see any change in that. The activity is actually taking off.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Edward Hussey from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just the first one. Do you mind just maybe quantifying the difference in tariff impact between the two divisions?
We roll the stick to say that it's roughly half a percentage point on group level.
Okay, thank you. Just on going back to this service, it seems like you're sort of underperforming as you've been saying in terms of customer share. Is this partly to do with trying to move to getting service agreements in place, and secondly, is this something that we should continue to think about going forward or how should we think about development from here?
No, I don't think it's related to, you know, when we enter into a service agreement we normally capture twice as much as we do if we're only selling parts individual. For us it's good when we bring in a service contract because that generates that stability and that's recurring revenue maybe for three to five years. I wouldn't say that that has in a way impacted, I would say it's more our ability to capture share on existing fleet but also that we, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we have had an impact from the nickel segment with a couple of service contracts that are under current maintenance and of course then that revenue stream is, you know, it's lost for the time being. Of course, when the nickel price, you know, moves up again then that revenue stream will come on board again.
Okay, thanks. I mean just on that customer share there, where is it going? Is it sort of, you know, local players, pirates, or is it to your biggest competitor? I mean what should we think about?
No, it's not to any other OEMs. It's always, I would say, local players doing service jobs and pirates. That's always the, you know, it's very seldom, you know, competitors or I have never seen it to be honest.
Okay, is it simply just a pricing question, or is it, you know, going forward, is this going to be a risk to pricing?
I wouldn't say that it's pricing. I think also a lot of mines want to shop, they want to have, you know, to spread their risk. I would say rather it's, you know, we need to, I think we have been, if you zoom out to look at this over the last five, six years, we have been successful in growing our service business. Now we have had lower growth numbers for the last couple of years and that is what we need to get back to, higher single digit numbers. It's all in our hand. I would say it's not related to, but of course price is one part of this. Also, there it's important really to drive innovation because with higher, better value proposition, that also gives opportunity for us to continue to grow the parts and service business.
For me, it's very much linked to how advanced machines we're putting on the market and that's promising to see because we are putting more and more advanced machines on the market every quarter.
Okay, thanks and sorry for hogging the mic. Just very quickly, final one, just in equipment and service, the headwind due to internal service mix, do you mind just giving some rough quantification, what the kind of level was this quarter?
I think what we said was we have lower share of service than we typically have, and service is where we have the best profitability. If we have more equipment, it usually comes with a lower margin than if we have more service. I think that's what we were trying to explain in the presentation.
I guess for a few quarters you've had an internal service mix headwind as well. Is that still an issue or is that no longer an issue?
I wouldn't say it's something that stands out in this quarter at least.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question comes from Vladimir Sergievskiy from Barclays.
Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for the time. Two questions from me. Number one, are you seeing any increase in competition in your surface rotary drill rig segment where Epiroc of course has historically been the absolute dominant force?
No, we are not. I would say this is, we have a very strong position in the surface segment, and I don't see any changes there.
Understood. The question on demand in mining equipment, obviously you continue to highlight demand as being at a high level. Your new equipment orders, if I exclude large orders, were up more than 20% year-over-year. Is this just a function of a base was lower and that helped, or indeed the high level of demand is perhaps getting a bit higher?
We had strong organic growth also in Q3 last year. We were up 11% in equipment orders in Q3 last year and now on top of that we are up 10%.
That is exactly the question. The question is you obviously continue to keep high level of demand commentary, but my question is, is high level of demand improved compared to what it was before? Has this level got higher or is it still same high as it was a year ago?
Okay, but when I look at the pipeline, I look at what we have ahead of us when it comes to expansion of expansion system mines. When it comes to the replacement, of course we are, you know, the fleet continues to grow older. When I look at the expansion initiatives, when it comes to brownfield expansion, we also in this quarter won equipment orders for greenfield expansions. That is, of course, you know, I see a positive outlook when it comes to the equipment for, you know, moving forward.
I think this is, we say hi and we have said that for many quarters, but when I look at it, I think it's also due to the geopolitical situation in the world that there are a lot of initiatives now going on to really push permitting, etc., in different countries to make sure that we safeguard the value chain of minerals. That is good to see. We also see that when we look at the exploration activity, exploration stood out with very strong demand in the quarter. That activity is very much related then to copper and to gold, which, of course, is promising. You know, that needs to happen for brownfield and greenfield expansions also to happen.
I would add to that.
Thank you very much.
It's a bit difficult to say exactly how it was one year ago, but if we go back maybe two or three years, we can definitely see that the problem projects are becoming larger. What we have gotten as a contract, for example, is Fortescue water that we talked about before. Also, what we see going forward, there are larger projects out there than what we saw at least three years ago.
Yes.
Super. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Tore Fangman from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi Helena. Hi.
Hi Hakan.
Thank you for taking my question. On the exploration orders that you mentioned, you said quite some strength in exploration. Could we see this as an early indicator that we now, let's say, finally see like a really strong recovery? Also, then connected with this, the timing of large orders, is this coming closer? Basically, trying to gather here if this is just a direct lead indicator to first see the exploration and then basically start seeing stronger orders for the equipment as well. Thank you.
For us, you know, having a strong offering in exploration is super important from exactly what you're saying because it is an early indicator and we see that drill m are trending up. We see that activity level of the fleet out there, existing fleet, is turning up. We also have a strong product offering when it comes to equipment for exploration and we are very close to the exploration contractors in the world. For us it is a positive when we see these numbers that the orders are coming in on exploration because that is what, if we look back into quite many years now, the exploration, the number of drill m in exploration has not been, you know, sufficient. If we look at it from an industry standpoint, which has led to that too few mines, it has not led to expansion projects or greenfields coming on board.
It's extremely important that exploration continues and increases because that's what will safeguard the output of, for example, copper in the coming 10 years. There is of course always long leading times when it comes to establishing new mine. For us, we see it as an early indicator. I'll share that view with you.
Just as a follow up here, maybe from your experience, can you maybe just share in past cycles how long has it taken between the jump up in exploration orders to then see it even further downstream?
I think that is always difficult. It depends on where it happens in the world. It's also a big difference if it's brownfield exploration or if it is greenfield exploration. If it's greenfield exploration that takes longer time before greenfield comes on board, that could be seven years. If it's brownfield exploration that goes much faster. That can be maybe a year or so or two years.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Gustaf Schwerin from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Yep.
Morning.
I have a few follow-ups. Firstly, on equipment and service, if we take the $300 million invoicing of Roy Hill, is it fair to assume that that was done at around 0% margin or maybe even losses, which would then take, say, underlying equipment and service margins to at least 22.5%? That's the first one.
No, it was not done with a loss. It was positive margin.
Was it low single digit margin?
Now we want to implement. Exactly. Like we said, it's still a development project, but now we got to invoice quite a bit, which meant that was at least with some margin. We won't go into exactly how much it was. It was below group average.
Okay. Secondly, on the service orders again growing below trend for a few quarters. You mentioned nickel, but it doesn't sound like the production issues at the copper miners are having a meaningful effect on growth here. If I remember this correctly, we did discuss Kalmar or copper weighing on service quite recently or did I get that wrong.
That's correct as well. We have mentioned DRC for, you know, during a couple of quarters. Beginning of the year, it was the unrest in the northern part of DRC that impacted. We also have an impact this quarter in Kamua. Their production has been hampered by the seismic activities that they have been under. That revenue stream is not yet up to where it used to be. We still have an impact from Kamua.
Do you mind sharing some kind of impact on Service growth in Q3?
The impact from Kamuyumin? No, we will not share that. It's a big fleet. It's a big contract we have there. If you go back, some of the largest orders, we have one when we announced it a couple of years ago, the largest underground order that went to Commonwealth. Of course, this is a meaningful business, but that is, you know, it. We expect that to come back here in Q4.
Yeah, they resumed operations end of Q3. That should be back in our books again in Q4.
Quickly. Lastly, on service growth here, you've made a large personal service contract in recent years, increasing penetration quite a lot. How far away are we from that actually translating into higher capture right now for parts and kits as well? Thank you.
I think for the contract we capture more that we see. It's always also depending on the age of the fleet, how much you capture because the high value components, you replace them when you are in, you know, a couple of years in, you know, so it's always depending on. It's not linear. The amount of larger components, and that's where the big value sits. It also has to do with the age of the fleet and in the different type of contracts where we have then put service contracts in where we have a larger fleet, for example.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for good questions, and I do know we have a few still on the line. Alexander and I, we will make sure that we reach out to you after this call. Thank you everyone for taking the time. Thank you. Helena Hedblom. Good presenting today, and yeah, successful investments. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you.