Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this summary call we do each quarter before we enter our silent period. And as you know, the purpose of this call is to make sure you are all aware of what we have communicated throughout the quarter, especially trends we see in our organic sales. Could you please. Yes, mute. Thank you. And for those of you that have called in before, you know the premise: in this call, I will not give out any news or figures that we have not previously communicated at conferences or seminars or other events throughout the period.
I will also add my usual disclaimer, and that is, of course, that the quarter ends in another 12 days, so you should be fully aware that I'm not privy to the full quarter developments yet. And I have to stress that the December numbers are not available yet, and the placing of Christmas is such that quite a few of our Western customers will close shop a bit earlier and longer than normal. It certainly makes the Q4 Pre-Close Call associated with some uncertainty. And I cannot go into the finer details in all of our subsegments in today's call.
He's now joining.
I will, as per usual, paint with broad strokes and save the details for when we report our results on the 29th of January next year. So let's begin, as we always start this call, and that is our guidance for Q4, which we released in our Q3 report. In October, in connection with our Q3 report, we said that we expected the demand trends, the underlying demand trends for our products and solutions in Q4 to develop on a par with Q3. And as a reminder, the Group organic development in Q3 was a positive 4%. We also said at the time that the 4% that we had in Q3 was boosted by one-off sales in Medical Solutions. Medical Solutions had some startup business with a new customer, which boosted that business area's organic sales to 13%, but we said it was more like 5%-6% underlying.
So that shaved off a percentage point on the Group sales from 4% to 3%, which was more the underlying trend. So that's the starting point. I could also mention about seasonality. The fourth quarter is normally a bit softer due to the Christmas period. And this year, again, the Christmas period is placed, so it makes it a little bit longer than normal in terms of how many days off, how many days you take off from work. On the tariff situation, we have said many times that the majority of our businesses are not directly impacted by tariffs due to our local-for-local footprint. And this is very much still our message, and we have not seen any meaningful direct impact on sales in Q4. On acquisitions, that's quite simple. We have not made any acquisitions in the quarter so far.
And so I will move on then to the business areas, and I will give you an opportunity after each one of the business areas to ask some questions if you have that. And we'll start with Industrial Solutions . In Q3, Industrial Solutions had an organic sales growth of 2% and a margin of 15.2%. And we had really good project deliveries in marine infrastructure in Q3. In Q4, so far, the trends I see is a bit of a mixed bag where we continue to see very good growth from aerospace. And we also see more and more improved demand from construction and mining equipment. However, in oil and gas, we see a decline. We see, of course, also a decline in the automotive segment. And building and construction, we are very big on seals for residential housing and also facade systems for skyrises.
That is still very much down. Now, what we do, the uncertainty in sales for Industrial Solutions is the project-related businesses. Will we be able to ship it before year-end, or will it be pushed into Q1? Sadly, we don't know yet how much we will be able to ship, and that is very much down to the longer Christmas period and holiday period. So it's a little bit uncertain here, but we believe that we will not be as good in organic growth in Q4 due to this pushback of project deliveries that we foresee a little bit. So whereas we were growing by 2% in Q3, I don't see that be the reality in Q4, but the underlying trends are not changed. But again, I don't know yet, but we hope to be around the zero at least. We'll see what happens.
It very much depends on how much we can ship out in Q4. In terms of margins, we had, like I said, we had 15.2% in the preceding quarter. It should be a little bit better from a seasonality and mix perspective in Q4. So I expect that to improve a little bit from the preceding quarter. Now, I think I'll stop there with Industrial Solutions. And if you have any particular questions on this business area, please raise your hand. And I can see that Hampus Engellau , Handelsbanken, has a question for me.
Yes, I'm also going to show my face. Yeah, no.
Thank you.
No, you continue to struggle in the autos and industry, as you said. When I look at data, autos has been surprisingly strong throughout Q4 so far and improved in terms of retail sales and production. Is this the aftermarket business, or can you maybe just try to shed some light on why you would be underperforming so much?
You don't know how much we underperform. I mean, we don't give out any numbers here, but we still feel that we are a bit away from where we expect to be. But in Industrial Solutions, it's not the aftermarket problem which we see in Sealing Solutions because we particularly, we sell directly to the OEs in our automotive boots, which we're talking about here. So no, we've actually had some good deliveries in Industrial Solutions throughout the year. So when you say that we continue to struggle, it's more the struggle has been more since the summer in Sealing Solutions and for the brake shims, but not for the boots. But in boots here in this quarter, I see a little bit of a negative trend.
Okay.
Is that okay, Hampus?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. And the next question we have on Industrial is from Vivek Midha, Citi.
Thank you very much. Can you hear me well?
I can.
Excellent. Thank you. I was just wondering if you could slightly expand on your comments around better mix in the fourth quarter. What's the driver there? And in particular, my understanding is maybe in the past, some of your project sales have actually been slightly higher margin. You commented they might be slightly softer in the fourth quarter. Is that a larger drag? And if so, what is the mix boost?
No, it's a very valid question, Vivek, but I think I'll save the answers until, and like I said in the beginning of this call, I can't go into that kind of details, especially since we don't have the full numbers for the quarter yet. So if you excuse me, I'll come back to that question once we have released our numbers.
Fully understood. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Karl Bokvist, ABG.
Yeah, thanks. Just wanted to double-check the comment there when you talked about margins and you said preceding quarter. Just to understand if you were referring to the third quarter margins or the fourth quarter last year.
No, so I was talking about the preceding, i.e., the Q3 margin, which for this business area was 15.2%, and we should then do a little bit better from a seasonality point of view. Also, as you know, during the holiday periods in the summer, we close down some and do some maintenance work, so it always affects the margins, so yes, they should be better than the 15.2% we saw in Q3. Yes.
Also last year, you had about one percentage point step up fourth quarter versus third. Was there anything particular there?
Yeah. So 16.1% in Q4 a year ago.
No, so it was more we kind of stepped up last year, and you said slightly up, but I mean, are there certain things that won't be there this year that we saw last year?
We have said that we, on average, add 0.5 percentage point to the yearly margin each year, and that is still our ambition.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks.
Okay. Thank you. And Agnieszka calling from Rio de Janeiro, I believe.
Yes, correct. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes. Just one question on Industrial Solutions, Christofer. I think you mentioned that some of the project business may shift into Q1. Can you quantify the size of that project sales? Is it like 3% of Industrial Solutions sales or 5%? Can you give us any indication?
It could, but again, I don't know, and we don't know yet if we are able to ship it out during the next 12 days, but yes, it could mean on the organic growth, it has some couple of percentage points or more, depending on how much we get out.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Any more questions on industrial? Okay. I will then continue with our smallest business area, which is Medical Solutions. And I already mentioned that in Q3, we had an organic sales growth of 13% with a margin of 20.7%. And we mentioned that we had some substantial startup business to one particular customer, which boosted the sales in Q3. So we shouldn't expect that in Q4, and I hope we have been very clear on that. We said that the underlying organic growth in the third quarter was more like 5%-6%. And in Q4, some of the trends we have noted are quite similar to what we've seen in Q3, i.e., the biggest segment, the medical device in North America, still sees soft demand, whereas the counterpart in Europe is albeit smaller, but it's growing nicely.
The smallest life science segment is enjoying very strong growth for us currently. Now, in general terms, we have said that we share the view that the medical industry is reaching the trough in terms of the stocking activity. But obviously, there are some segments of product areas that are still reducing inventories at the year-end here. And we see that some of the stocking is taking place for Baron, our Australian Chinese acquisition. We have seen some year-end stocking from one of its larger customers there. So that is something to take into account. So I do not see, due to the stocking in that part of the business, I don't see that we reach the same 5%, 6% in Q4 as we saw in Q3. And that is also due to the fact of the Christmas.
Other news in the quarter for Medical Solutions is that we have opened up our new state-of-the-art production facility in Costa Rica just a few weeks ago, beginning in the beginning of December. And that is something that we are very excited about. And that facility will ramp up during next year and also bring us quite a lot of benefits. So any questions on Medical Solutions, please raise your hand. Good, good, good. Then I'll move on to our largest business area, which is Sealing Solutions. And Sealing Solutions had a strong organic growth of 5% with a margin of 20.7% in Q3. And in Q4, these are some of the trends we have noted. And the industrial part is enjoying good growth in Europe and Asia, whereas the Americas, especially North America, continue to be soft for us.
And in automotive, we've seen some aftermarket improvements in automotive, but also, and I'm talking about the brake shims aftermarket here, whereas the other seals business for the automotive is a little bit weaker than we saw in Q3. And so in short, aerospace and industrial as a whole delivers solid growth, whereas automotive remains a drag here for us. If I should go and give you a little bit more highlights on the regional level, I could say that in industrial EMEA in Europe, Middle East, Africa, we see that the growth is, to some degree, fueled by the agriculture segments in Europe. To some degree, but even though it's not a big part, we also see some growth also in the defense business for us.
In APAC, industrial APAC, we see a strong momentum from industrial equipment, particularly, whereas we see that the weakness in industrial Americas is coming mostly from industrial equipment and chemical processing. The Damping Solutions , i.e., some of the automotive exposure we have, Damping Solutions explain half of our automotive exposure in this business area. That's where we see fairly weak OEM demand, whereas the aftermarket, which was weak in Q2 and Q3, shows early signs of recovery. And again, aerospace, very good growth throughout October, November, at least. So to summarize what I see in terms of organic growth here for Sealing Solutions, yes, it was 5% in Q3, but I believe it would be a little bit of a struggle to get to 5% in Q4 due to the holidays. So still good growth, but probably not the 5% we saw in Q3, which then brings me, well, first of all, any questions on Sealing Solutions before I tie this up on a Group level?
Hi, Christofer. Do you mind just talking to what you've seen in fluid power and then construction businesses and Sealing Solutions?
Yeah. So the fluid power, we've said that fluid power, i.e., hydraulics, pneumatics within Sealing Solutions explain about one-third of that business area. And that is something we've seen negative volumes for, well, close to two years now. And we saw the first signs of improvement in Q3 in terms of order intake. And that order intake is continuing to improve in Q4. But we have also repeatedly said that that order intake will translate into sales more in Q1 and Q2. So yes, it is improving, and it bodes well for next year, I should say. But again, most of that order intake we see now is for later deliveries.
And as you know, as we've discussed many times, this is what we've been waiting for, these improvements in hydraulics, pneumatics, because that is what will bring us up to the normal or earlier levels of 23%-ish, that kind of level in that business area. And we need that segment to come back. And now it looks as if it's on its way to come back, at least.
Cheers.
Any more questions? On yes, Forbes?
Yeah. Thank you. Just if you could maybe address the margin in sealing since we started to see a bit of an improvement in Q3?
Yes. Yeah. I think the Sealing Solutions, which was 20.7% in Q3, I believe you will see a little bit of a seasonality impact, but still above 20%, but probably not 20.7% in Q3. But that is more due to the seasonality of the Christmas than anything else. That's a typical decline or small decline in the margin at the year-end. We also see that jump up in Q1, as you probably know. Any more questions on Sealing Solutions? No. So if I then should just talk about the Group, then overall, I think the underlying trends are moving in the right direction. The order intake is continuing to improve in Q4, but the order intake we experienced in Q3 is not directly translated into sales in Q4. But we certainly have expectations of improved organic growth coming next year. So the next six months or so certainly looks better.
But of course, we cannot see beyond the next six months in Trelleborg. So there's still uncertainty for the full year next year. Q4 so far, yes, I mentioned the order intake, and it is improving, especially in fluid power, as we discussed. Construction equipment, we see improved order intake in LNG and semiconductors. The automotive is, for us, at least, weaker in Europe and the U.S., whereas it's stable in Asia. And in terms of housing segments, if we discuss the soft points in Trelleborg, the construction of residential housing, the facade systems is still down. We have not really seen any rebound yet. And then we also discussed the Christmas timing, which adds uncertainty for year-end call-offs. So that's basically what I could say about the situation in Q4. We expect to have organic growth in Q4 for the Group, but a little bit of a shift.
That is the biggest uncertainty comes from the project business in Industrial Solutions. So whereas we were 4% with the extra business we had in Medical, we don't see that be the case in Q4, but we still expect to see organic growth. And in terms of margin, yes, we had 18.1% in Q3. And the way I look at it, we should match that in Q4 as well, if not improve on it. So yes, steady, as they say. It's a steady business for us, but moving parts. Some is improving now. And we are then, of course, very much excited to see what the biggest part in Sealing Solutions is, how that is developing into Q1 and Q2 next year. Any final questions for me before we call this off? Okay.
I think that concludes this pre-close call, and I hope to discuss our Q4 much more in detail with all of you once we have published our report on the 29th of January. So in the meanwhile, I wish you all a restful end of the year and Merry Christmas, etc., etc. So hope to speak to you soon again. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christofer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks. Have a good day.
Thank you.