Greetings, welcome to the presentation of Sandvik's results for the third quarter 2018. I'm Ann-Sofie Nordh, Head of Investor Relations at Sandvik, and today, as you may notice, we have a new setting for this presentation. The format remains the same. Our CEO, Björn Rosengren, and our CFO, Tomas Eliasson, will run through the presentation in due course, after which we'll open up for Q&A, both from the conference call, but also there's an opportunity to put questions through online. With that said, I'll hand over to Björn and Tomas for the presentations.
Thank you, Annsi. Also I'd like to wish you all welcome to this Q3 presentation. Starting up with a little bit of highlights of the quarter. We see strong development in all three business areas. We see also a solid development in more or less all our segments that we're operating in, as well as the three geographical areas. Profitability 18.9%, which I think is a good number for the group, and happy with that. Not least, you who listened to me last quarter, was a little bit disappointed with the cash flow. Now we generated SEK 4.7 billion in cash flow, which is well in line to be able to reach our targets for the full year. Let's talk a little bit about the market development. We see, as I mentioned, strong growth in all three major geographical areas. Europe up 10%, North America 14%.
If you look at U.S. out of that was 13%, and then in Asia, 10%, which is in line with what we've seen also in China, which was 10%. The segments are pretty strong, all of them, besides we can see on the automotive, which is flat, as well as in the mining. Sequentially, I think it's pretty much in line with the previous quarter. On orders and revenues, we were up 9% in the quarter and 10% in revenues. We can see that we have a book-to-bill ratio, which is just under one. If we look at the full year, we actually reached 104%. Looks good also for the future. On the EBIT development, I mentioned I was happy with reaching 18.9% or SEK 4.6 billion, and this is a 37% increase.
If you exclude the currency part out of that, as well as the structure in metals, it is a 25% increase, which I think is on a good level. Normally, as you see here on the chart, that the third quarter is seasonally lower than the other quarters during the year. If we take a little bit of deep dive into our operating units, starting out with SMS. You all know that SMS is the best indicator of the market. We saw a solid growth, 8% in orders, when it comes to price volume. We saw a good EBIT margin of 25.4%. This has also been a very exciting quarter for SMS. It was the big show in Chicago, the IMTS, where all the tool manufacturers are gathered every second year.
On this show, we received the prize also for the most innovative product of the show. Exciting, I find, that was the Silent Tools. Shows that we are on the front line when it comes to new product development and technologies. Moving over to mining and rock technology. We had an order increase with 8% and a revenue increase with 14%, and a profit margin of 18.1%. I'm happy with this 18.1%. To give you a little bit more in-depth in that number is that if you would take the FX out of that number, it's actually 18.6%. If you instead lift out the Varel of that business, as you know, is up for sales at the moment, it is actually 19.3%. I think we start seeing this business now coming up to the levels where I think it really deserves.
On the order side, 8% might be seen as a little bit shy. I think I still like to say that the momentum in the market is good, I've been traveling around pretty much in this quarter and visit a lot of customers. With the metal price levels that we have, both on gold as well as copper, I think nickel, we feel that this is a good level for continuous strong demand. To SMT or material technology. It goes from clarity to clarity. I'm extremely happy to see orders continue to go at a high level, 22%. If we take out the large order for umbilicals during the quarter, it's still 17% up, actually good numbers.
We're also seeing improvement in the performance in the EBIT levels, where underlying is 5.7%, which, of course, is significantly better than the previous year, and the reporting is 6.9%. This is in line with what we do expect to be able to reach the 10% next year for the full year. I think it's doing well. The management and the whole team are delivering great according to the plan. Also like to mention a little bit on the oil and gas market that the underlying investment climate in the oil and gas market is actually showing good indications, we are pretty optimistic moving forward. Tomas, by that, I like to hand over to you a little bit in depth in the numbers, please.
Thank you very much, Björn. Let's jump into the numbers. Let's start with the financial summary, as usual. Orders were up 9% organically, revenues 10%. Currency was +6% on both orders and revenues, structure was -5%. Structure here was the divestments of Process Systems and Hyperion and both of the wire businesses, also the acquisitions of Metrologic and Inrock. Net -5%. All in all, +11% for orders and 12% for revenues. We then continue down the income statement, look at the earnings, SEK 4.7 billion, compared to SEK 3.4 billion a year ago. Quite an improvement. SEK 4.6 billion is not bad for a third quarter, 37% up, also the margin, 18.9%. It's very strong for a third quarter. 18.9% compared to 15.4% a year ago, we'll have a look at that in the bridge in a moment.
The finance net came in at minus SEK 140 million, an improvement compared to the minus SEK 193 a year ago. Behind that, the most important item is, of course, the interest net, and the interest net came in at minus SEK 150 in the quarter, compared to minus SEK 202 a year ago. That's a reduction of 25% on the back of reduced debt as well as recapitalization of the subsidiaries. Tax rate, 26.1% in the quarter. Reported was even lower, and we'll have an extra look at that also in a little bit. Working capital was reduced sequentially, which had a positive impact on the cash flow. However, as you can see, the percentage was up, and we have a little bit of a buildup in inventories in all three business areas. Of course, inventory management will be a focus area for us for the coming quarters.
Cash flow, SEK 4.7 billion, also a good improvement, recovering very good for the third quarter. Finally, returns and earnings per share showed very good improvement. Let's have a look at the bridge on the next slide here. If we look at the organic part, the 10% improvement on the top line, SEK 2.1 billion, SEK 839 million in EBIT effect. That gave us a leverage of 39%, and the leverage was good in all three business areas, 47% for SMS, 35% for SMRT, and 45% for SMT. That gave us a margin accretion of 2.2 percentage units. Currency added 0.5 percentage units, and structure of metal prices and one-offs, and structure added 0.8 percentage units. If you strip out currency, you strip out structure, you strip out metal price effects, the margin in the quarter was 17.6%, so 15.4% plus 2.2%. A very strong margin.
On the next slide here, let's take a little bit of a dive into the reported tax rate because we have some things going here now in this quarter. As you can see, the reported tax rate was 22.5%, but that includes the capital gain from the Hyperion divestment, and that came in with a very low tax rate. If you strip that out, the underlying tax rate was 26.1%. The guidance that we have for the year is 26%-28%. It's been like that for quite a few years now. We said at the start of the year that the guidance will remain 26%-28%, but in the lower range, and that's where we are right now. Then we'll see what happens with the guidance in 2019, but we'll come back to that early next year.
Let's move on to the balance sheet. Working capital, as mentioned, was reduced in the quarter, even though the percentage was up. On the right-hand side, you can see the working capital by business area. It's a bit up for all three business areas, and especially for SMT. Cash flow is improving, and we still have our ambitions, and we're focusing on it. On the next slide here, cash flow, you can see that in Q3, the cash flow recovered nearly SEK 5 billion according to plan. If you look at the right-hand side, you can see earnings contributed, working capital contributed, and CapEx was around SEK 1 billion. SEK 4.7 billion in cash flow compared to SEK 3.7 billion a year ago. That, of course, takes us then to the financial net debt or the net debt really.
It's both financial net debt and pension debt here, reduced down to SEK 15 billion. Gearing is 0.27. Of course, we had some divestments in the quarter, but also some acquisitions. The net-net was SEK 0.7 billion from divestments and acquisitions. The bulk of the reduction was operational. This will continue going forward in Q4 and in 2019. A very, very strong balance sheet. Let's take a look at the guidance. First Q3, what happened in Q3? We guided SEK 650 million plus in currency effects. We came in at SEK 608 million, in the neighborhood. The total currency effect though was SEK 381 million. The total currency effect includes revaluation of working capital and hedges and what have you. There is no possibility to guide about that. It is what it is. You do not know what it is until you come to the last day in the quarter.
Metal price effects, we guided SEK 100 million, plus came in at SEK 39 million in the quarter. That is the in-quarter effect. It is not a bridge effect. For Q4, we guide underlying currency effect of SEK 400 million, and we guide metal prices on minus SEK 100 million. For the full year, CapEx, we keep the SEK 4 billion as a full year guidance. We are on SEK 2.7 billion year to date right now. Net financial items stays on SEK 1 billion as we have been guiding since the start of the year, and the tax rate, as we have discussed, will be between 26% and 28%. As you can see from the year to date numbers, it is more closer to 26% than anything else. We do not know until it is over, until we have the full year. With that, I will hand back to you, Björn, for summary and conclusions.
Thank you, Tomas. If we summarize the quarter, we can say that good demand in all three of our businesses, also in the different segments as well as geographical areas. The development of the profit, the EBIT margin, continues in the direction that we are driving the company. We had a good quarter when it comes to innovation. We had a fantastic price at the IMTS show. Also during this quarter, we were included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index also this year, where we were actually 92% better than our audited peers. We are very happy for that. It shows that we are going in the right direction. Maybe the most important of all is that Sandvik is a very strong company today. We have an enormously strong balance sheet, which has been working.
We have a strong cash flow, which we expect to continue in the near future, which will put us in a situation where we are close to being debt-free. This gives us a lot of muscles and opportunity when it comes to the growth which we are focusing on. Opportunity when the valuation of some of the targeted assets are becoming on the right level, we have a good striking power. With a lot of optimism and courage, we are looking forward to an exciting future. Thank you very much. By that, I actually want to give over to Ann-Sofie Nordh for the question and answer part.
Yes, thank you. With that, we'll open up for questions, both from the conference call, also please feel free to use the online option. Operator, would you please put through the first call from the conference call, please?
Of course. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad now. The first question is from Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi, Björn and Tomas. It's Klas from Citi. A couple of questions from me. First on SMS and automotive. You're seeing stable demand in Europe and Asia, a slowdown versus last quarter, but not as dramatic as I think many would have thought. European light vehicle production is down 3% in the quarter, China is down 5%. First of all, are you taking any market share, is this simply that we should expect a lagged effect where you expect incremental weakness into the fourth quarter as it takes some time to get the inventories in the channel out? I think you alluded here on my screen that there's a weakness in China towards the end of the quarter. What have you seen at the start of the fourth quarter in automotive, please?
I think the fourth quarter, if you look at, we have had a couple of weeks here. It continues approximately on the same level as we saw in September in the third quarter. It's on a good level. Normally, the Q4 is on a higher level than we see in Q3, which we are following pretty much for the business. As you mentioned there that we saw some weakness during the end of Q3 when it comes to automotive in China. If we're looking at the quarter, what we've seen SMS, I think, is a good indicator, of course, for the automotive industry, but also for the whole industry. What we saw during the quarter, which was somewhat softer in China, was actually compensated in North America when it comes to demand. It's, of course, difficult for us to predict the future.
I think from our perspective, we read the newspapers, and we read the same as you are doing about the automotive industry. Of course, we are preparing ourselves in a good way to be able to handle that when and it will affect us.
Okay. Obviously, the fourth quarter will always be higher than the third because of seasonality. On daily sales in automotive, there's nothing that you've seen in terms of weakness across Europe and China? Obviously, China a little bit.
I can see, of course, for the whole part, not just for the different part, but it continues on the same level on the daily rates as we've seen in the previous quarter.
Okay. My second one is on mining. The weakness in the copper price thus far seems to be driven by currency. We understand that most projects are going ahead, even the greenfields that have been announced. At the same time, we see this result season, some early signs of that discretionary spend or larger orders now being pushed to the right owing to the increased uncertainty around macro and tariffs. When you look at your project pipeline, Björn, in mining, do you see any hesitation from the miners now? I know when I met you in September, that wasn't the case. I wonder if that has changed.
I've been actually spending quite a lot of time out in the market visiting customers in the regions. You know that I have spent quite some time also in South America, where we see the copper in Chile with El Teniente and Codelco and so on. I think it's quite a good mood in the market. A lot of big decisions has been taken within copper. We all know that most of the copper market is going underground at the moment, which means big investments. We know that the copper rates are actually getting less, which means that you have to dig out more rock. I think it's a pretty good sentiment among copper today. The price is not so bad, to be honest. It's around SEK 62, SEK 63, which is quite a good number.
Historically, we say when it stays over SEK 6, we say that the market gets pretty good. Of course, it's driven also by the high U.S. dollar. That means that in many of these countries where you do the mining, some of these currencies are significantly weaker than the U.S. dollar. Of course, they make quite good money on there. If you go out and listen to the market, it's pretty good. They are pretty optimistic out there. I agree that I think maybe 8% was a little bit shy from what I expected. Maybe I would have hoped 10% for the part, but I would say that September was better than summer. It was more quiet during July and August. We saw a good pickup in September. To be honest, I'm pretty optimistic for the next quarter.
It's difficult, of course, to see moving too long forward. The sentiment in the market is quite good on mining.
Okay. Good. My final one is on the moving parts in SMRT. Am I right that Varel is a 13% margin on EBITA, midstream mining and construction, perhaps 10%, and therefore drilling and hauling slightly above 20%? In that light, if that is the case, where is the upside to the SMRT margin when you look into 2019? Those margins across the three verticals are in line or near others in the sector with solid market shares. I just want to see the opportunity. How can SMRT be the number one on profitability across drilling, hauling, Varel, and in crushing and screening?
My heart is there. I'm pretty optimistic about the SMRT future. Let me give you a little bit an insight there. I can, of course, not comment all the margins that you have said. I will give you the Varel. It was not that strong actually quarter for Varel. It was down in 7% underlying, which is quite significantly lower than we saw during the second quarter there. If you look at SMRT without Varel, I said we actually did 19.3%. Good. Where do we see the upside? We see continuous strong development in the aftermarket. You know from before that the aftermarket is key to the success in the SMRT. It gives stability, it gives profitability, and also agility in downturns. That continues to develop in a fantastic good way for Sandvik.
I think this is not only driven by that the market is growing, but also that I think we are doing a better job when it comes to the aftermarket. The most important, and I said it before, and I underline it here again, that is the automation. It is so exciting. More or less every mine around the world, maybe you visit a number of them, are today looking into automation. I think that is going to drive the business going forward, but it's also going to get Sandvik closer to the customers. When you are closer to the customers, you can develop your aftermarket and your support business, but also drive equipment. That's where I'm the most optimistic, and there are so many exciting projects on the automation side going forward.
The technology is there. It's quite a unique opportunity we have at the moment. Thank you.
Thank you, Klas. Operator, can we have the next question please put through?
Of course. Next question is from the line of Guillermo Pena from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. Guillermo Pena from UBS. I actually wanted to ask about round tools in Machining Solutions. How much of revenues in Q3, if we could have basically that as well for 2018 so far. Also what was the growth relative to the other part of SMS in relative terms?
I don't think I can give you that split when it comes to round tools, but it's correct that round tool is actually growing faster than you are seeing on the insert market, that is, of course, the change in the market. Here, this is the same with Sandvik, that we managed to grow with this market quicker on the round tool side. What's exciting is then, because you know we always said that there should be less margin when it comes to round tools, but I think we have been able to prove that we can keep the good margins also on the round tool development, even though that is actually growing a little bit faster than the insert market.
Thank you. A follow-up on that. I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that part of the round tools franchise is manufactured by yourself, part of it is actually round tools that you buy, then you do physical vapor deposition. I wonder whether you have also more or less a split or a feeling how much is what, so how much is produced by you at Sandvik and how much is just bought and then coated. Thank you.
No, I think we produce the majority of the round tools also. It varies a little bit also between the different brands. For instance, if we see Walter has always been the one with the highest % of round tools in the market. We see at the same time both Seco growing very quickly there, but also Coromant, very strong development in round tools. The majority of what is being sold is actually produced in-house.
Thank you. My last question is obviously relating again to the SMS division on the inventory levels and the 60 basis points help you get, obviously, on a year-over-year basis. I was wondering whether it would have been, given all the signals that we do have in car production and in some of the trends in different cycles, whether you know, in order to preempt or try to anticipate the cycle, some inventory deskocking or more aggressive inventory policy was needed, or are you confident with your inventory levels as we stand right now?
Of course, I'm not happy with building up SEK 250 million in inventory during the quarter. When we look at SMS, it was actually higher. We're talking over SEK 400 million there. The important thing is that half of that is actually coming from buying of powder as well as recycling components for the future. That I think will get down pretty fast. We are running our production facilities a little low now because we need to get the inventory in time. We have pretty tough targets when it comes to net working capital going forward. I think all our operating entities, and this is not only SMS, it is SMT that need to focus on this, it is SMRT. They all have different reasons for why the inventories are high.
I can assure you that it's a strong focus in all our operating entities, and we are determined to reach our target when it comes to net working capital as well as the cash flow going forward. The focus is absolutely there. We'll be working hard during Q4. I need to prove it for you guys, but that's the objective.
Thank you.
One mustn't forget that we're in a situation now where we have growth on growth. We've been growing for eight quarters now, and running the supply chain in strong growth for that long time. It's a delicate balance now. The growth numbers this year is not as big as last year. Yeah, it's a focus area right now.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Maybe I can risk another one. Remind me, I can't remember now whether your electrified mining equipment is running on modular batteries or you need basically to stop the machine to recharge and load the battery back up, therefore just basically having more downtime. Thank you.
Let me talk a little bit about electrification, because I think this is an exciting area for the future. It's the same in the mining market. We talked a lot about battery-driven loaders and truck and also drill rigs. On the drill rigs, it's a pretty simple solution because you have these batteries there. When you're tramming the drill rig back and forth, you use the battery, and when you drill, you actually connect it to the grid, which you always do with a drill rig. At the same time as you are drilling, you are actually loading your battery. That is a seamless flow.
When it comes to loaders and trucks, it's a little bit more difficult, and I think we have the same challenges there as every electric car in the market, and that comes to how long you can run on the batteries before they have to be recharged. Far in the market, this market hasn't taken off yet. There are a couple mines who are running test units in the market and trying to get acquainted with it. I'm convinced that to get the mining permits in the future, you need to be there with this electric. For Sandvik, we are in a quite a favorable position when it comes to this electrification, because we actually started to work with electric cables on loaders, long before anyone else. We offer today a full range of loaders where you actually connect yourself to the grid with long cables that are.
A combination, where you need to tram one of these trucks or loaders up for the ramp, you can actually connect yourself to the grid. While you are tramming on a flat surface, you can use the batteries. When you are using the grid, you are also loading the battery. There is a lot of different tries, different technologies that we are experimenting with at the moment. I think in a couple of years, you will start seeing some mines buying this equipment. It's still an early stage and it's very few units that are really actually operating operationally in the market yet. I'm convinced there will be, and I can assure you that Sandvik is being in part of that development, and we're going to be in the front line.
Thank you so much. Very helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you, Guillermo. Both you and Klas work as good reminders for me to remind you to limit yourself to two questions each, please. I know there are a lot of people waiting in the line to put their questions through. With that said, operator, would you please put the next question through?
The next question is from the line of Matthew Spurr from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yes. Afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I had one on mining and consumables. Can you talk a little bit about the consumables development? It's been sort of up and down. The commentary this quarter in mining consumables reads quite nicely, some sort of peers and competitors, it sounds as though it's still quite a tough area. Is it different for you because of where you've got stronger market shares, or is that still difficult?
When we talk about consumables within the mining industry, I think we have, of course, a strong market share in more or less all the areas where we are operating. The consumables together with the service business we call the aftermarket, which today represent 60%-65%, actually, of the total sales of Sandvik. We had, during the quarter, a good development, just under 10% development on the consumable business. That reflects a little bit of what's happening operationally in the mine. The service and the consumables, that's the activity level that we are seeing. It's moving quite good at the moment.
Okay. Can my second one be on back to SMS and the sort of the demand profile? I think you said that the Q4 started on the same sort of level as September. I didn't quite catch whether you said September or Q3. Can you say how the exit rate was in September versus the rest of Q3? Just trying to get an idea of whether there was a slowdown towards the end of the quarter or not.
The slowdown we saw, that was within the automotive in China. That's the part. Otherwise, I think it's on a flat level.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you for the two questions. Much appreciated. We'll have the next question put through please, operator.
Next question is from the line of Max Yates from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. Just the first question is on mining. You talked about the timing of large orders, I just wanted to try and understand whether that was more a technicality of when you were booking them and you perhaps now booked them already in October, or whether that was a reflection of seeing some increased hesitancy across customers. Perhaps you have booked them already.
We haven't booked any large orders during this month until today, even though, of course, a lot of orders is coming in. What I said during the quarter actually, is that, yeah, I thought maybe 8% was a little bit shy in relation to my feeling of activity in the market, or my feeling, our feeling, how our girls and boys out in our operating entities is seeing at market. You probably saw there was no really large order booked during that quarter, I think that's a little bit of timing. I'm pretty convinced that we'll see that before the end of the year.
Okay. Maybe just one for-
We'll inform you also when that happens.
Okay, thank you. Maybe just one for Tomas on the FX in the quarter. Obviously, I appreciate it's very difficult to predict how the FX sort of plays out with the working capital revaluations. I guess the difference between what was guided and reported was more than perhaps we're used to. Could you maybe explain just what the key differential was between those, and if there's any sort of way that we can try and anticipate if the SEK 400 million guidance for Q4 may end up being sort of materially different to that, and whether there's anything we can look at in terms of certain currency moves through the quarter to try and understand that?
Well, we only guide translation and transaction effects. We guided SEK 650 for the third quarter. We guide SEK 400 for the fourth quarter, and we're pretty sure it will be SEK 400 if the currency rates don't change compared to where they were just a few weeks back. We give no guidance on revaluation and the revaluation of hedges, et cetera. There is no guidance whatsoever on that one because it's so difficult. Not really. It can be SEK 100 million or SEK 200 million either way. You never know.
I think one important thing to say that during this quarter, there were a number of activities that happened that made it a little bit bigger, I think that could be explained with three major things or four major things.
Yeah, sure. Well, there were some. You had the big currency devaluation in Argentina, for example. We had Turkey, we had Russia. There were a few currencies like that who had quite an impact. It doesn't explain the whole thing, but SEK 80 million-SEK 90 million or something like that out of that.
That's just revaluation of the hedges for those currencies?
Well, no, it's not revaluation of hedges. In these countries where you have, let's say, non-convertible currencies, you report in US dollars, but you have another currency underlies. It means that you run into a big balance sheet revaluation when you have these kind of currency changes, really.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. I wish we could guide on that, but you can't, really. That's why we have decided not to guide anything around that. You never know.
Yeah. Makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll have the next question put through please, operator.
Next question is from the line of Graham Phillips from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you, Björn. Thank you, Tomas. My two questions, one is on CapEx. You've obviously retained the guidance of SEK 4 billion, but it does imply quite a pickup in the fourth quarter. What is this being spent on? Where could that actually be engendering some extra growth? What would be the outlook for 2019? Thank you.
If we look at the CapEx a little bit, is that I think we guided for the full year just over SEK 4 billion. We are a little bit lower. I think this is actually being summarized from our operations from below. We don't go in and question these at the moment. When they come, they need to be, of course, approved in the group management as well as if they're bigger, even up in the board. Even if we guide that it might be 1.4, I'm still pretty convinced that we'll be under SEK 4 billion for the full year.
Just as a follow-up, intrinsically, where are you investing to add to additional growth from underlying markets? Clearly that's where you can get some leverage.
It varies a lot. In some places we are investing in a new IT system structure that's driving a little bit of capital. We are not building any new factories. In some cases we are maybe moving two distribution centers into one. That creates some capital investment that you need some return on. There are small things that we are doing. Of course, everything needs a good return on investment. We like to see investment in these areas where we can see growth in the future.
Yeah, if I may just add to that. We have not invested in any capacity expansion really at all, with maybe some exception. It's product development, and as Björn says, it's IT systems, it's efficiency and productivity, those kind of investments. Maintenance is going down quite dramatically. We don't have any numbers for you, but the trend is very clear.
Okay, thank you. Well, perhaps related to that. You've obviously got some good growth figures coming through. Let's say SMS is growing 11% organically in North America, Europe 7%. The aftermarket growth in metals and mining, that looks like, and my math's trying to look at maybe what it was last year. I know you restated things up maybe 15% or 16%, and you're clearly outperforming it. I know you gave some indication of why that may be, but do you think also in any of these areas that customers may be stocking up a little bit in anticipation, I don't know, of price rises or something else? That you are outperforming underlying indicators. Mining production is only growing a few percent, and IP numbers and GDP numbers substantially lower than what you're reporting from SMS growth in those two regions.
I agree with you, I think we've seen this during the two last years, very strong growth in the aftermarket business, that's related to significantly more activities from our side. When we are talking market share, in the aftermarket is how much of the service of our equipment is done, and how much we can deliver, both when it comes to spare parts, wear parts, as well as service hours on these units. We look at that carefully. We make sure in each of the regions that the focus is there, and that is driving. When it comes to SMS, it's from the hand into the mouth, as we say. The customers have deliveries within 24 hours, so there's no reason for anyone to stock up in any parts.
If a distributor does that, of course, that can happen, you know that the majority of our business is actually sold direct into the market. I think everybody's very careful today in stocking up, I think this is a big difference from historically. I think SMS is pretty much showing the activity level that is taking place in the segments that we operate.
No price increases influencing those numbers of significance?
The price increases are good. We are high up, and we are reporting a 2% price increases in the market, which should be there. Absolutely, I think it's on a healthy level.
Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you, Graham. We'll have the next question please, operator.
Next question is from Markus Almerud from Kepler Cheuvreux . Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, Markus here from Kepler Cheuvreux . I'd like to start out with mining rock. What part of your installed fleet is now replaced? I'm talking about drilling and load and haul in particular. Is it also possible to say anything on the average age at the moment of that fleet? Related to that, how do you think this automation electrification will pan out? Will it be when you have upgrades of machinery, or will it be new projects mainly, or who do you think will be the main buyer? Will it be across the board?
Let me start with the last one. I think it's an important question because when it comes to automation, sometimes these are being done when you're going to a new level, you're making a certain change in the mine. That's when you see the big investments, where you see a fully automated mine level. When it comes to small automation, a lot of customers are trying out, and today, if you're looking our portfolio, the AutoMine, it's everything from have one loader, to have a couple of them or have a full fleet. You can actually start with a smaller, and then you can add on to it. A lot of customers are trying this and experimenting and seeing what kind of effects they get by these investments.
I think it varies, but the big investment is normally when you take a more quantum leap step in the mine. You have also the possibility also to design the mine, which is perfectly suited for an AutoMine. When we look at the CapEx on the equipment, I've been very clear on this for a long time that it's difficult to call our loaders and trucks and drill rigs as capital equipment. It is wear equipment. They have a lifetime of five to 10 years, depending on how rough they are being treated in the difference. When you exceed five years, you actually need to either replace them or you have to actually upgrade them in a way which of course generates a lot of revenues.
We don't have any numbers exactly how much that has been replaced, but you know that the number of equipment we have in the market is between 15,000 and 20,000 units operating in full speed today out in the market. There is always a big demand for equipment. What determines buying of equipment or not buying equipment, that is normally not actually the mine manager or the individual mines. That normally comes from the cash being generated from the boards. More or less all the mines, they want to buy equipment all the time to be able to deliver good productivity levels. Sometimes when the profit levels of the mining industries are lower, they can actually cut the cash flow into the operation. At that time, they run them a little bit longer. That varies.
At the moment, with the metal prices that we have today, it's quite healthy level, especially when you have the dollar so high compared to many other of the-- most of the mining companies are actually making good profit levels today. That should continue to roll, and there is always a demand from it. It will never be a time when they have replaced the whole fleet. This is happening all the time.
Okay. Then just one other quick one on just a general wording of your release. You write that you see demand intensifying in all three major geographical regions and improving in all customer segments except automotive and mining. Is that compared to second quarter? You are seeing it intensifying and accelerating-
That is-
Is it compared to last year?
That is compared to last year. We also show in the paper sequentially, and all of those are flat. If you look at it.
I just want to make sure. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Markus. We'll go through with the next question, please.
Next question is from the line of Alexander Virgo from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks very much. Good afternoon, Björn, Tomas, just a quick follow-up, I suppose. Trying to quantify the impact on margins for Q4 of your inventory management. If you've obviously had a bit of a benefit tailwind in Q3 of 60 basis points, I'm wondering if you can give us any indication of what you think the headwind might be for reversing or managing that down a little bit in Q4.
I can't give you any numbers there, I think it's a right observation that when we take down the inventory, not in all parts. When it comes to the mining industry, it looks a little bit different because that's a lot of equipment that is being under production, some of them are already ready, so they have to be sold out to the market. When it comes to SMS, yes, of course, when you take down the inventory, yes, it will have effects on the margin. I can't quantify it at this moment. I think that depends on a little bit how successful they are to take down the inventory during the fourth quarter.
Okay. I suppose if we start off with the 400 basis points, SEK 400 million or so you mentioned earlier on, if we take that as our starting point, that's a fair assumption, isn't that right?
No, I don't want to go into any details on that part. I can assure you that they're fighting hard to continue with good margins in that business. Yes, it can have small effects on the margin when we take down inventory. I think that's about what I can say.
Okay, that's lovely. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
We can just clarify that 60 basis points, that was Machining Solutions and not the total group. The total group was 20 basis points.
Yeah. That's also true.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. Can we have the next question, please?
Next question is from Sébastien Gruter from Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Good afternoon. My first question is on the balance sheet revaluation of SEK 230 million in the quarter. Could you split this impact by division and related to this issue, would you say we should add back this impact to the EBIT to get a clear picture of your underlying margin performance? Or should we stick with this impact to better forecast following quarters?
You mean the hedging balance sheet revaluation part or the balance sheet?
Yeah.
Do we give that by division?
No, we haven't.
No. We don't disclose that by division as such. It can be zero next quarter. It can be a plus next quarter or a minus. We don't know. We don't have any specific guidance on that.
In terms of how you treat that, would you say we should exclude this impact from your EBIT performance in Q3 to get a clearer picture of your underlying margin performance, or?
No
You won't do that?
No.
I think the underlying FX is SEK 381 actually.
For the group, yeah.
for the group.
Yes.
That is off you have to look. Yes, it was just from the translation and transaction, it was higher, SEK 600. The effect that the underlying running is SEK 381. This time it was negative, but it could, next month, if you see some of these currencies in a certain market get strengthening against the U.S. dollar, for instance, that would be effect that some of the hedges are placed in a different way that would also could be affect positively. It's extremely difficult to actually to forecast in a quarter going forward, and that's why we don't do it.
I'm not sure if I understood the question fully, but the effect of all the various currency effects for the group and for the business areas are in the material. You can see how much it is and how much it impacted the margin and the accretion or the dilution or whatever it is. That we report.
Okay. You are toward the end of your three-year plan, 7% CAGR in EBIT. You will probably exceed the target by far. When can we expect an update on the next of a three-year plan, or if it's three or five? Should we assume the focus will be more on cost and less on profitability in the next plan?
I cannot go into the detail there, but we're planning to do during the Capital Markets Day or just before, during the springtime. I think that's the time. That's when we had the three years that we promised and what we've been delivering on. We will put the right targets which is adequate to the situation where we are and how we see we want to drive the company in the future. I agree with you. I think when I came into the company, I was not satisfied with the margin of how we drive the group. We were at the 12% EBIT level. Today, we are running at 19% for the group. That is, of course, a different situation. I still see upside, of course, because we work with continuous improvements in all operations, and we're going to push that, of course, hard.
It's true, going forward, that I believe the value in this group is going to be generated by growth going forward. That's important.
If you go back to 2015, we had 17 of our businesses loss-making at that point in time. Today, none. It's more units who are in growth mode than stability profitability, but there are still some where we have work to do.
The other part which I think is important for the future to drive value in Sandvik is also to show that the group is resilient to downturns. I think that's extremely important. That's what we've been working on the last three years to make sure that we do not go back in margins where we once were, that we can protect our margin also in a downturn. I think that's the big focus in Sandvik today.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. I think we'll have time for one more question. If you put that through, please, operator.
Of course. Next question is from Andreas Koski from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I would like to ask about the inventory build-up in Sandvik Machining Solutions as well. Did you say that you built inventory by more than SEK 400 million for Sandvik Machining Solutions impacting the EBIT in the quarter?
No, absolutely not. It's half of that, I would say approximately.
Okay. How does that compare to the build-up in Q3 last year? How much did you build back then?
Good question. Do you have that number?
Not me. Do you have that number?
I don't remember at the top of my head right now.
Okay, no worry. May I ask about Q4? Do you have those numbers? Now you plan to reduce inventories in the fourth quarter.
Yeah.
I think you built inventory in Q4 last year. I understand you don't want to give any guidance of how much you will decrease inventories in the fourth quarter this year.
Correct.
Do you remember, or do you know how much you built inventories in Sandvik Machining Solutions in Q4?
No, I don't actually remember how that was.
In Q4, we had issues with the.
I can come back to you. We can do that after the call.
Yeah.
We can come back to you with the details then.
Yeah. We can say right now, we have a completely different situation. The demand was so strong. It was stronger and stronger. We actually had problems with delivering to our customers. We don't have that problem today.
We had some issues within SMRT.
Yeah.
Sure, it was of course on the upturn when it comes to the drive of the market, and of course, we are now on a very high level, and we are seeing sequentially, the numbers being pretty much in line there. The focus is to getting down the inventory. On SMS, yes, I told you about half of that SEK 250, approximately, which is related to EBIT effects. The other part of that part is actually powder and scrap that was bought in to the group. No effect on that. It's correct, we will focus on getting the inventory down, and I think in SMS, it can have some effects of the margin, but don't make it too dramatic as we are pretty confident about the fourth quarter.
Yeah. Okay. Maybe you can help me with the dynamics here, because I don't have all the details. If demand for Sandvik Machining Solutions, again, on a daily sales rate stays more or less unchanged in Q4 compared to Q3, what would that imply in terms of year-over-year growth? I come to a number of maybe 4% or 5% year-over-year organic growth. Is that the number you recognize if you just look at the daily sales rates going into Q4?
I will not guide you in that direction. We'll wait and see where it comes, and we'll make sure that we take care of the volumes. If it's that level or if it's somewhere else level, we'll be adjusting our production and our deliveries in accordance with that. If we start getting into guidance forward, it becomes a little bit wrong.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. With that, we'll end this presentation and update. Before we finish, I'd like to remind you that we have announced a date for our Capital Markets Day, which will take place on the 21st and 22nd of May next year. Then you'll have the opportunity to visit our test mine in Tampere, in Finland. Of course, we hope to see you there then. Before that, we'll see you in about a quarter's time. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Bye-bye.