Metall conference call on the results for the first three quarters of 2026. My name is Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations. Our CEO, Victor Breguncci , and our CFO, Claudia Trampitsch, will present the key developments and financial results for the first nine months of 2026. As usual, the presentation and the press release were published this morning and are available on our website under Investor Relations. Following the presentation, we will open the call for questions. Participants joining online via Airtime will be able to raise their hand once the Q&A session begins.
Participants dialing in by telephone are kindly asked to press star key nine to register their question. Before we begin, I would like to briefly draw your attention to the disclaimer I am now sharing that is included in the slide deck and ask you to take note of it.
With that said, I would now like to hand over to Victor, our CEO. Victor, the floor is all yours. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Christoph. Good morning, everybody, from my side. We are moving into page three, where I am going to talk about the highlights of our Q1/Q3 2026, and it is important just to highlight that in the beginning, everything that we are going to present now is a reflection of very strong, diligent, and disciplined actions that we have done in all the areas of our P&L in our business, not only in [audio distortion] [Ranshofen], but everywhere across the AMAG Group business. We are glad today to share positive news. You have read our ad hoc a couple of days ago.
We are coming from the revenue with an increase of 17% in Q1 to Q3, around EUR 1.3 billion, which is very much driven by the strong performance in our rolling division, but also with an impact from our with aluminum prices that everybody, I am sure, is following through, which automatically, as I said, impacts our EBITDA. We are today at EUR 181.4 million EBITDA, a steep increase of 58% versus same period last year, and it is very much pushed by management measures that we have implemented in Ranshofen. Alouette has contributed with the prices and the stability in our operations in Canada, and we are glad to see that we see the positive and consistent benefit of that in our operations.
As a result, net income after taxes increased significantly at 141%. We are today, Q1 to Q3, at EUR 81.7 million. Still represented everything that I mentioned before, but the key message is across all our divisions, we see performance increase versus the same period in 2025. When we translate this into our free cash flow statement, Claudia will give all the picture of what happened from investment, from operating. Still, we are adjusting the free cash flow. We are at EUR -67 million, which was a lot to do with our investment in working capital and the prices of aluminium because of our growth. I will let Claudia explain and draw into that discussions later on in the presentation.
In liquidity, we had higher tied up capital and dividend payments in April 2026, but still, we are back now end of September to the net debt/EBITDA back to 2x. It is, for us, a very important KPI. Outlook, as we have provided in our ad hoc guidance, we increased to EUR 200 million-EUR 220 million from EUR 170 million-EUR 190 million that we published in the end of the first half of 2026. This is pretty much based on extraordinary performance we had in pricing in Q3, and we see what is coming in the outlook for Q4. We are positive that we are going to be achieving this quarter at the end of 2026.
A little bit more information where we are now, page five. Again, important to highlight, we are using every single capacity available at Ranshofen site with every single man-hour that we have. Productivity at record levels in the Casting division, in our Rolling division in Ranshofen, without losing, without compromising anything on quality and delivery performance. This is an outstanding achievement that we have from our management and our teams. I am really happy and glad to say this is one of the reasons that we have this extraordinary financial performance.
A little note, September was a record sales in our Rolling division. We had 23,600 tons in this month. At the same time, with all this growth, with all this productivity, all the pressure to perform because we see the opportunities in front of us, we remained still as a reference in the industry with 0.9 in our TRIFR, that here we multiply by 200,000 hours. When we multiply it to 1 million and discussing with our aluminium association in Europe, we see that we are one of the best performers in the industry, not only in Rolling, but also in the Foundry division. There is still room to improve.
Our target, of course, is to have zero accidents, but our measures and the way we manage our company, the way we manage our facilities gives us the chance to be at this still positive trend in improving our numbers with regards to accident rate. A reflection of our positioning and the way we work is how we are being recognized. More recently, we have been finalists in the Airbus Sustainable Future Awards. Among all the raw materials, we were in the forefront of providing key elements of sustainability and circularity to our main customer. Once again, we were in the ALC, Austria's Leading Companies, in Upper Austria, we won in the ESG category. We confirm EcoVadis and VÖNIX listing once again. This is a very important element of consistent improving our capabilities in this front.
Last but not least, during the ALUMINIUM Fair in Düsseldorf in last October-- the beginning of October, I am sorry, it was still in October, we were the winner of the Innovation Award with our technology and product innovation CrossAlloy.57. We are progressing with that development with some customers in our market, and we were awarded for the benefits that this innovation can bring to the marketplace. Last but not least, our power contract of 1,085 MW was concluded for the Canadian smelter and securing energy, as we have been communicating since time, our supply, energy supply until 2045. This slide is plenty of good news and where we see our company today.
When we go to page seven, I talk a little bit of the market, how do we see our performance, and we see in the first box the split of our sales of our external shipments that we grew in a magnitude of 5.5% in total, but a big jump into our rolling division from 157,000- 174,000. Stability in the casting business, and metal also some very strong stability there. It is where we see that the activities we are doing in Ranshofen allows us to increase the output. All the profitability measures we did is allowing us to grow in shipments as well. When you see in the lower box, we had some positive shipments that were identified in our metal division for the fourth quarter of 2026, related to postponement around 2,000 tons.
In the Casting division, we had good execution in pricing in the market, not only in the pricing of the foundries, but also in the scrap purchases. We see, despite the backward into the shipments, we do have positive trend in this business in terms of profitability. As I mentioned before, the positive operating performance enabled us to really achieve where productivity sales, but also profitability in our site in Ranshofen, driven mostly for the premium markets where we operate, automotive, the heat exchange and the cooling systems, and the aerospace sectors, with an increase versus 2025 of 17,000 tons. When you go to page eight, we try to put here a small summary of how all the major markets where we operate are bullish, are positive. You see based on the CRU, the Commodity Research Unit, they are showing still the positive trend in all the segments.
When you look at automotive and transport, going through heat exchangers with the data centers, showing positive momentum because of the cooling needs for those data centers. In aerospace, the three in the top of this slide are allowing us the opportunity to grow our presence and increase our market share in some segments, not only in Europe, but also in North America, where we see, despite the geopolitical elements that we are still living, AMAG products still have the chance to penetrate this market with achieving our premium products and our traditional customers accepting the reality of the geopolitical reality. When we go a little bit on the lower side, we have an industrial. We see a very strong recovery in Europe, with regards to demand, especially in our heat treat products. This is one of the reasons that we had a better execution in Q3.
You see that Germany and Spain and also U.S.A. are pulling this demand across all the various sectors in the industrial. This is an important point where we can position ourselves in the middle of Europe to capture what happens across all the markets in our region. Still, challenging headwinds we have regarding the cost positioning. It is not something that we have to avoid saying. We do have to cope with reality energy in Europe. We have to cope with the reality of the scrap availability. All the business model that we have been used to capture the opportunities but still managing these challenges that did not disappear. They are still present in our business. A more stable market is packaging. This is a base load. This is something we have been navigating over years, and this is a legacy that we have.
We adjusted shipments year to date by - 16% in agreement with our customers in this segment, because the competitive landscape here is also something that we have to call the attention. It is where we need to really adjust and cope with the demands and how competitiveness plays a key role. Last but not least, when you look at other segments like in the sports and architecture, we do have opportunities for growth, but also competitive landscape puts an an additional pressure on how can we cope with this market. So year-to-date shipments are up by 6%, but this is where we need to really make sure that we are using the right level of products to the right customers because the competitive landscape is a bit more challenging.
In a nutshell, we see that from the demand side, it allows us to positively grasp and get all the opportunities we have with our premium and long-term legacy customers. We are very happy to see that customers that we chose to work with long time are performing well, so we perform well with that. So when we go to page nine, please, Christoph, we see specifically now for the rolling division, the shipments by industry. We have two parts of this slide. On the left, we have a pie chart where we show the representativeness of all the segments in our sales. We see that automotive has 23% of share in our sales, aerospace 13%, transport 3%, the industrial application 32%, packaging 11% on the top, and the heat exchange with 12%.
What is the message here? The balanced and diversified portfolio remains a long-term strategy of AMAG. This will not change over time, and we are glad to see that fluctuations there are driven by market demands, customer needs, and our positioning in terms of portfolio and productivity/profitability focus. On the right, you see how our sales developed from Q1, Q3 2025 to 2026, and you see where in the portfolio, in all our premium products, we see growth. Automotive, we took opportunity of the platforms and qualifications that we invested over time. We grew from Q1 to Q3, 44%. Other transport lorries and truck trailers, we are 31% above heat exchangers. As I said, the mega trend of data centers, we are 19% above aerospace and 11%, sports 6%, industrial, despite a balanced level, no major growth versus 2025.
We see a better improving mix and pricing execution, which culminates with the positive EBITDA we have this year. Packaging, as I said, at -16% in the whole mix, in the whole growth of sales as presented before, adjusted together with the customer. My last slide at this part of the market give you a flavor where we are in terms of order book. We have seen since end of Q4 last year, a steep approach, a steep growth in the order book. While we are performing higher sales and performance, Q1, Q2 and Q3, we are in the corridor of 60,000-90,000 tons, which for us represents well the level of order intake that we have to have in our company, especially in Ranshofen in rolling division.
It is driven mostly for the automotive sector, as I mentioned before, but also by heat exchangers and aerospace products that are kicking in now for Q3 starting for next year. We have a healthy order book. We are happy what we are having and execution of pricing for the Q3 and Q4. It is a relevant topic. As I mentioned before, some other sub-markets, sports and architectural remains really challenging from an execution point of view, despite being very important profitable products, but still a challenging market and still we are discussing with our packaging customers how to better support them in light of how they decide to organize their product or their supplier portfolio.
In a nutshell, great performance in Ranshofen. As I said before, we grasp all the opportunities we could during this year, pricing execution being a clear element, enjoying management of our portfolio and productivity. I think transitioning now to the financial part of the equation, we are very glad to see the positive execution in our business in all the AMAG Group from Q1- Q3 and in the outlook for Q4.
Claudia, please over to you now.
Thank you. I want to give you first an overview how our market prices developed the first three quarters in our business. What you can see now, or what we saw the first three quarters is that the price levels for aluminium premiums and alumina were very attractive for us for the P&L side. Aluminium price increased by more than 30%, and this had a positive effect for our revenues for sure, but also for our earnings. But as you already have seen and will see later on, it has for the working capital a negative effect we are working on. But overall, market condition, which are especially relevant for the Canadian smelter, are still attractive up to the third quarter, although we now see declining prices on the aluminium side and rising prices on the alumina side now starting on the fourth quarter.
When we go on and look at our revenues, all what we said before is now reflected on the revenue side, and we could rise our revenues with 16% up to EUR 1.323 billion this year in the first nine months. What the main difference to last first three quarters is, as I already mentioned, the aluminum price, and price and premiums. I want to also focus you on the volume and mix changes, which is mainly what Victor explained before, rise in volume and change in mix on our Casting and Rolling division. Moving forward to the EBITDA of the group, we can show an operating profit growth of roughly 60% this year. We now show an EBITDA of EUR 181.4 million for the first nine months. What is the main difference to last year?
We already said that the aluminum price has this effect, and obviously, we could also transfer the effect to the EBITDA, which also means that we are, on the smelting business. We had a solid production. We sold to Europe, to the U.S., so could diversify here to get the best prices available for us. Even though we sold 2,000 tons less than anticipated, which are postponed to next quarter, still very attractive EBITDA results here. When you see we had some negative effects on energy in our reconciliation, this is mainly due to the power contract we have at the Canadian smelter, which is aluminum LME price linked, and therefore, if we have higher aluminum prices, we have also a rise in energy.
That's the main part of this EUR -7 million in here, also some effects of Austria, for sure. We didn't only rise our revenues with the volume and mix effect, but, and I'm especially proud of that as well, that it's also reflected in the EBITDA, that it's not just a higher revenue, but also we could bring it down to EBITDA level, which means that our cost structure is very attractive and we worked on that a lot to be able to benefit from our efforts at our plants to be as cost-efficient as possible.
Negative effects we see here is we always have some valuation effects, but compared to the first three quarters last year, so it's always not compared to year-end but to the first three quarters, and there we saw that we had last year higher risk provisions and therefore, positive effects of using of risk provisions we do not have this year, and this is mainly the effect compared to the last year. When we look just at the first three quarters, we do not have a high evaluation effects in total. The big chunk is just the comparison with last year. When we look at the segments much more in detail, what I want to point out again is I already said that we had some effects on the metal division out of having sold less metal in September, which come back in the next months.
W e also had some roll-over effects from prolongations in the metal segment. Nevertheless, adding up everything, we could have EBITDA which exceeded the EBITDA of last year's quarters with EUR 35 million. Also at the Casting division, we could show incredible increase of EUR 6 million, even though it is a small segment we have, but we could use a positive price trend for recycled casting alloys. We could benefit of our cost efficiency measures, which also take into account here. Still, the focus, as Victor said before, on scrap availability and price trends still there, challenge there, but we really showed this year that with our measures we have taken on that and the focus on that area, we could increase our profitability significantly. For the Rolling division, a lot of things have been said before.
As we mentioned energy before, I want to say that we had part of the energy hedged in our business at Ranshofen, therefore, the sharp rise in energy prices we have seen in the third quarter, let us say, was not as high as perhaps anticipated because our hedges kicked in, and we could therefore get a very good result at the Rolling division, adding everything up, EUR +29 million. When you look at just the third quarter, here you can see that all the measures, the rise in prices, the focus on costs, on energy, on scrap availability, on the customers, and so on, is reflected in what we achieved in our third quarter 2026, where we had EUR 80.3 million just in three months. This shows as well how well our team worked on every angle possible to achieve these results.
We are very proud of showing you the second-best quarterly results we ever achieved, given all the challenges we have to manage and being able to show the positive result in every operating segment that we have. When we look at net income, nothing special to mention for sure. We have high income taxes than the year before, just a result out of our EBITDA increase, but nothing particular on that side. Now I want to go over to financial stability. When we look at our cash flow, the free cash flow for the first three quarters is negative with EUR 67.3 million. But I want to focus more on the development we have had since the first half of the year.
In the last three months, we could get up from operating cash flow, which was at the end of June, EUR 56.7 million, and now at EUR -36.2 million. Therefore, you already see the increase of the positive effects on the cash flow. To see what we said three months ago and what we are saying now, our negative cash flow results from higher aluminium prices, from tied-up working capital, which we needed for making the ramp-up and selling many more tons than we did before. But we already see the effects where it turns in the positive way and have more than EUR 20 million better operating cash flow than we had three months ago.
This is the message I want to give you for our cash flow, that yes, it is negative, but compared to the first six months, we really improved our operating cash flow and that is the trend that we can show. This you can also see when we look at the balance sheet figures, because when we see the evaluation of the net financial debts. During the year, we started with EUR 321 million at the end of the last year and raised our financial debts up to June 2026. Here you also can see the EUR 20 million I was talking about before, where we see the decline already of our net financial debt. It gets paid back, and we can show that, yes, we are on the way, seeing also the very positive and great results of our EBITDA at the balance sheet starting of this quarter.
Very happy to announce and tell you that we could significantly improve our leverage, which you can see on the right side of the slide, where we are now at the leverage of 2.04x end of September 2026. When you look at our graph where we were coming from last quarter, you also see here the great achievement where we can show how we could go down, not just from June, but also are we on a lower level than in 2025. Adding up all this is equity. We paid dividends. We had all the things we mentioned before, but we could rise since the beginning of the year, our equity, nearly 10%. Even as we said, all the things around it, we could strengthen our position here and have a very good equity ratio as well.
Overall, I could show you a strong P&L, as well strong balance sheet, improving cash flow in the last three months. Adding that all up, we have a successful three quarters we could present you. When we look at, to finalize the picture, at our ESG indicators, overall, our key figures are still in a sound and solid range. When you see what you can see here, deviations in energy consumption, CO2 emissions, or scrap utilizations, they are largely driven by changes in product mix. If we have different product routes, therefore, for sure you have different emissions tied up to specific tons. Overall, we are still, and we are, in a sound and solid range and are having these figures in focus as well. The strong performance of safety we already mentioned before.
I am happy to now give the word back to Victor, who will give you some more information on how we look at the rest of the year and how our guidance will be.
Thank you very much, Claudia, and jumping into page 24, as being announced, we are improving our guidance to between EUR 200 million and EUR 220 million based on what we have seen since Q2. We changed our guidance already in the first half in July, and we saw the consolidation of our measures and initiatives in Ranshofen. We saw the execution, we saw the cost improvement program elements that we established. We see that it deserves to go to levels of EUR 200 million- EUR 220 million. So when you look at all three divisions, we see we expect no major surprises in the metal business, stable production, aluminium and alumina prices for the end of the year remain positive. The negative roll-over effect persists, but the impact we see every month is declining. What is the impact of the degradation to our business?
In the casting business, in the foundry alloys, we are using almost full capacity of our furnaces in Ranshofen. The measures have kicked in, and we see them also in Q4, and profitability is also benefiting from a positive price environment for the sale of foundries, but also for what we saw in scrap acquisition based on our capabilities we have in our site. In our rolling, last but not least, we mentioned the whole presentation, the strong operational performance we see, and we see it also happening in Q4. The cost efficiency measures we implemented has a lesser impact, so we see also going in Q4, and the idea and the measure now is take advantage of all the working capital reduction we can do, shipping all the capabilities we have in Q4 until we finalize the year.
W e are convinced that we are going to have a year that will be a trademark of the trajectory that we want to implement in this company. We go to page 25, has a little bit of the assumptions that we took. I just mentioned this, needless to say, but important to mention, risks persist, especially in an environment, globally speaking, that in a stroke of a pen, we might have impacts in our business. Not that we see that this could be so short term oriented, but the fundamental aspects of our business can be changed. Although this could be a risk, we are confident and convinced that 2026, we have October, November, December, we are positive that we are navigating to a very successful year. We are now going to the point where questions should be coming.
So thank you very much for the attention in the last half hour. We are open to questions and back to you, Christoph.
Yeah. Thank you, Victor. Now it is time for Airtime of explaining how the Q&A session works, and then we are happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation, and we are now open for questions. For a dynamic conversation, we prefer to take your question in person via the audio line. To do so, please click on the virtual Raise Your Hand button so we can allow you to open your microphone. If you are dialed in by phone and want to ask a question, please raise your hand with the signal star nine on your telephone keypad. We already have someone with a question. Patrick Speck, you should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question, please.
Yes. Hello. Good morning. First of all, congratulations on a fantastic Q3. Yeah, very strong and much better than expected, I think. My first question is on the free cash flow development. You mentioned the positive swing we saw in the third quarter already. Would you also expect a positive free cash flow for Q4, or is it too early to tell?
Thanks for the question. I would perhaps focus it more on the operating cash flow because the investing cash flow for sure will, we have some investment still there, so it will get a little bit higher. But on the operating cash flow, yes, I will see the positive trend in the fourth quarter as well.
Okay. My next question is, I was wondering the development in the packaging market. It looks like it is the least attractive market for you, but I was wondering how the new packaging regulation, PPWR, how this is affecting your business in the sector, and might this be a factor that this market becomes more attractive for you in the future?
Thank you for the question. This is a very fair point. We are investigating, as we speak, what could be the implications we could have from this market. Nevertheless, this adjustment, packaging has always been a base load of our business. We are navigating with the main customers in this area what is the best mix, the best level of products that we could have, knowing that the competitive landscape, the availability of many suppliers developing these products has increased. So the whole dynamic supply-demand has put a lot of pressure and regulations on this product. It is still a product that we are consistently developing, but we have to adjust based on the customer needs and based on the competitive landscape.
Now, as you just mentioned, this new regulation can bring a little bit of a better positioning for us, and we are not yet to say what are the positive or negative impact implications, but this is what we are investigating at this moment. It is a very fair comment.
Understood, and very interesting comments. My next question, also a bit more open question. With all the market share gains you showed and the high utilization capacities, et cetera, at what point would increasing capacities become a topic for you and the company, especially in the rolling segment, of course?
Well, Patrick, I am sure you understand. We do have different product capabilities in our mill. That is what stands out with our competitors. We can produce all the portfolio from [trilutron] alloy point of view, from 1,000 series alloys in aluminum to 8,000. We can produce plate, we can produce sheet coils to many segments. So capacity utilization is driven by how the market reacts, right? How the market is positioning in terms of growth. We are gladly benefiting from usage of all the investments we did in the last 10, 15 years. Our new mill, new hot mill, and the new cold mill, and the finishing lines are being very much utilized.
What we see today is how to cope with the product lines where we see potential for growth, but still the competitive landscape, as I mentioned before, puts pressure on how can I still bring new products, new capacity, new quantities, but still be able to not disturb the market and still be able to make a profit. Let us put it that way. We are looking at, and this is one of the main reasons that we have implemented a very strong portfolio analysis, very strong cost measures that will allow us, for this product, to bring them from a negative implication to a positive outlook. All the measures that we are doing is to allow us to fulfill the full potential of the business that we have in Ranshofen when I am talking about the rolling division.
Talking about foundries, we are at capacity. We are 2% or 3% away from full capacity, from nominal capacity. And our metal business in Canada is, as I always say, this is a Swiss watch. It works well at a very well-positioned cost curve and CO2 curve. So this is working as we speak. So in a nutshell, we are addressing all the divisions with the best potential that we can drive from the assets that we manage.
Okay, and my last question is on your order book in the rolling division. The order backlog came down a bit, still within the target range, of course. But is this just a normalization, or have you become more picky in order intake, or is it a sign of a bit weaker demand from the market?
Thanks, Patrick. That is a very good question. There is a seasonality that we saw now in Q3 that adjusted. There is a little bit of being cautious because we see strong developments in the industrial side globally. We were very cautious in August and September. Now we see that we are adjusting our order book accordingly, and we will see the positive trends. We sustained at a high level of order book. But this was, as you said, there is seasonality, there is cautious in opening the order book, and also the elements of where we want the orders to come. So all of the above has implicated in the adjustments in the order book. Very well perceived. Thank you.
Understood. Thank you, and all the best for Q4.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speck, for your questions. A short reminder to all the participants, if you have a question, please signal that by using the Raise Your Hand button on the lower part of your screen. This is not the case. So in the meantime, no further questions.
Sorry to interrupt. We have one from Julien.
Yes. From Mr. Julien Rault . You should be able to speak now and unmute yourself.
Yes. Good morning. I was just wondering, your rolling shipments increased by 16% year-on-year in Q3. Could you just tell me how much of this growth is sustainable, and how much is due to temporary supply chain issues in North America?
Thank you, Julien. Also a very relevant question. This is one of the things that I have been putting pressure the whole year, that we do not have a just sudden increase in sales and then we lose it. It is not necessarily with the same customers, but we have prepared the organization to sustain this level of sales. We will maintain, and that is the focus, talking about the guidance now in terms of sales. We want to keep this level of performance in the segments where we increase sales. This is one point. The second part of your question is we are gaining market share in other segments that has megatrends implying to it.
Let us put it in the data centers, cooling systems. This is also something that we want to stabilize and grow together with them, knowing that this trend might achieve a peak, and then sustain this peak for some time. We are navigating the growth together with the customer, on a second note. Third, when we look into aerospace, its demand for newer airplanes, it is guaranteed for the next 10, 15 years. In the end, it is more of a supply chain element. We saw this last two years, a lot of destocking in the supply chain of the aerospace business. We see that there were plenty of inventory in our first immediate customers, but also at the airframe builders, the tier ones.
We see in this year, in 2026, and we see the trend for 2027, that this destocking will bring this steep ramp up in terms of more sales of raw materials into the aerospace side. We are positive that all the growth we have seen this year will be sustained for the coming year. That is the focus that we have.
Okay. Thank you. Another question on my side. You mentioned lasting benefits from the cost efficiency measures implemented at Ranshofen. Could you, or are you able to quantify the annual savings achieved so far, and whether further improvements are expected into 2027?
Thanks for the question. You are right. We mentioned it several times. That is something we are working on consistently. We are talking about being cost efficient and making cost efficient measures, like we say, all the time because that is what, when you see that prices are rising, personal costs are rising, energy prices are rising, you have to look where can we have countermeasure so that in total we still stay at a price level where we can offer our customers attractive prices. This is what we are doing at every angle and have a high focus there.
Also, you have seen that we are very diligent on our investments. There is no big number or no chasing of an overall guidance here, but to look at how can we get attractive market prices, and this we have shown because we could price all our sales and our EBITDA on that level.
Okay. Thank you very much. Maybe one last question, just to have a more general view on your side. What is your view about the global aluminium market going into 2027?
I think when you look at the outlook of CRU or whatever, but for the aluminium market, the demand is there. Victor showed it before that in all the segments that are relevant for us, the demand is rising for sure. We know also that there are production sites coming on stream everywhere, but that is always the case that you have around you more customers, competitors, where you have to be competitive at the end. That is what we see on the aluminium side.
We saw that the aluminium price went down the last week, so that is true. But I think, to make a focus on aluminium price for the next year, it is a little bit difficult on our side, but we are coping with it. We have a very good risk management also on the aluminium price side, where we do where necessary our hedging, so to take the best out of it.
If you want to look at the market itself, the demand for aluminium has consistently shown growth trends for the next five, 10 years. The level of usage of aluminium in all the segments where we operate remains strong. There is the upstream side that Claudia just mentioned. From the downstream side, we see that the trend in all the boutiques and all the institutions that do analysis on growth for aluminium usage show positive trend and positive growth. We're in the right place with the right capacity and the right market, the right team, so we're happy with the business we have.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Rault, and we come to a next participant with a raised hand. Joseph, please state your full name, and you should be able to ask your question now.
Hello. Thank you. Joseph Cherrez here, 3XRE Limited. I had a question regarding the automotive result that you have. Clearly, showing 44% growth is a strong result, but obviously, this is a very challenging market for many of your competitors, in Europe at least. I wondered if you could give a little bit of detail on what's driving that stronger performance.
Thank you very much, Joseph. Automotive, when we look at the whole automotive market, yes, we see a lot of competitive dynamics in this market. It has to do with the platforms and the type of cars, the type of usage of metal, be it steel, be it aluminum. This has to be put in perspective. When you go into the addressable market where aluminum goes in high intensity, it's all a matter of how we decide which platforms we bet on, right? Whom we fight for in terms of nomination, and which platforms we decide to participate and be competitive and try to get the award. The trend, the positioning that we normally have in this industry, we are blocked in from, let's say, three to five, sometimes six years when we're nominated for a specific part or parts in this market.
That would put, as we say in German, the overall picture from the above. What happened is there were some disruptions in North America where we were called to the rescue for some key customers, and we were ready to support. This is one element that happened this year. There is a second element, is that our commercial strategy kicked in for the chosen platforms that we decided to operate, that they sold more, we sold more. Right? This is the second element. And the third is how I am going to position ourselves for the future growth. Which platforms are we getting nominations right now?
The expectation is that this short-term benefit that we had this year with the shortfall from one of our competitors in North America, that will persist because of the choices we did in the platform for the coming years, which is showing a positive trend. When you look at the overall picture, it's challenging. When we look at those that we chose to grow with, they are profiting from specific micro demand from their specific markets, and this is taking the aluminum from consumption, our aluminum sheet that goes into automotive application. In a nutshell, it remains challenging. We see what's happening from a customer behavior point of view, but the platforms we chose are performing well, and as a consequence, we are selling steadily, not only this year, but in the coming years.
In a nutshell, that is what I would like to bring to your attention. Thank you for the question, Joseph.
Thank you very much. If I could also ask maybe the same one in relation to industrial applications, because that also, I think, in Europe, has been challenging in many areas, but obviously there are some that are doing better. If it is also possible just to get a little bit of granularity on that, it would be very helpful.
Oh, sure. With pleasure. When you go into industrial applications, then we have to open a bit more the portfolio. We have to divide into heat treat and non-heat treat, let us put it that way. The heat treat is using a capability which provides properties that is in line to the applications we have in automotive, in aerospace. The non-heat treat are more the traditional non, how can I say, not competing with the traditional premium markets routes in aluminium. When we look at the landscape of the products that are heat treated, generating higher performance in strength, this is a market that is competing with the premium markets, and that is where the fight is. This is where the demand fighting with aerospace, with semiconductors, space, satellites, sports.
The applications that require this sort of treatment are bullish at the moment. This drives the decision that us, that we, AMAG, we have to decide, we have to honor the commitments we have with our traditional markets, but also there are opportunities arising as we speak. On the non-heat treat, the competitive landscape is a bit more fierce. We have many more players participating in this market with plate and sheet and coils. But the AMAG brand is well-positioned. It is the first to be selected. Of course, we try to position ourselves in a level of excellence in terms of pricing. But these are markets there have different dynamics.
When we talk about industrial, we consolidate it into one market segment. But in the end, when you go deep in it, there are different elements to it, depending on the route and the product mix that we are talking about. When we summarize, we see a pickup in industrial demand in all regions. In all key regions for us in Western Europe, also in Southeast Asia and in North America, we see, as I said before, a very bullish environment given the limited capacity we have there for the heat treat products.
We are trying to position ourselves as a long-term supplier, but also trying to identify how we can tap into new markets. That is the challenge that we have from a sales point of view.
Thanks a lot.
Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Cherrez, for your question. To other participants, if you have questions, just push the Raise Your Hand button. That seems not to be the case. We have no further questions, and therefore, I hand back to you, Christoph.
Well, thank you very much. Thank you to all participants for your great and relevant questions. Anyhow, if there are any questions left, please feel free. You are more than invited to give me a call. Simply write me an email. I am happy to clarify or answer any additional questions. I wish you all the best and a very pleasant Thursday. See or hear you soon. Have a great day. Goodbye.