Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Andritz Q1 2026 Results Conference and live webcast. I'm Sergen, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question from the webinar, you may click the Q&A button on the bottom left side of your screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press the operator assistance button on the bottom left side on your screen or star zero on your telephone keypad. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Matthias Pfeifenberger, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning. Good morning, and a warm welcome from Andritz for our Q1 earnings call and webcast. Thanks for your continued interest in Andritz and your participation today. It's a great pleasure for me to present your presenters for today's call. I have with me our CEO, Dr. Joachim Schönbeck, and our CFO, Vanessa Hellwing. I'd like to pass over to Dr. Schönbeck now for an overview of our Q1 results. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, Matthias. Good morning to everybody. Thank you for joining us on our call for the Q1 results 2026. I would happy to provide good news for Q1 in 2026. Despite some, I would say geopolitical tensions and surprises, we can report a very good quarter. We had a record high order intake that was mainly driven by Hydropower and Pulp & Paper. I would say, Hydropower had an extraordinary quarter with cumulated bookings of several midsize orders, but also a very strong quarter for Pulp & Paper. We could see a stable development in Metals.
We could see a further decline a bit in the market in the automotive, but we could see a, I would say, a trend, reverse trend in steel where we could see good growth in order intake and also an increasing project pipeline. Environment & Energy, we could see a small decline. On the other side, we also see that the structural demand drivers remain intact, but I would say economic uncertainties also delayed some of the decision-makings. However, the high order intake should not be extrapolated for the coming quarters, even though we are not too pessimistic on the markets we are in.
We could grow in revenue despite another time quite a negative foreign exchange impact. That growth is also sustained by Hydropower and Pulp & Paper. We could see a slight growth in EBITDA and a stable profitability. The growth is driven again together with the revenue by Hydropower, Pulp & Paper. We could see stable EBITDA margins for Metals, Environment & Energy despite declining revenue. I'd say that's a good, that is a good sign. Key figures in summary, order intake at EUR 3.6 billion, revenue at EUR 1.8 billion, book-to-bill at 2. It's easy to calculate. Record high order backlog, EUR 12.4 billion, up 22% compared to previous year.
EBITDA, as I said, stable margin 8.2% and EUR 147 million on a comparable base, and a net income of 5.1%, EUR 92 million. We look to the to the quarter to the quarterly development of order intake, you could see record high EUR 3.6 billion and on the quarterly 12-month rolling average, now we are moved above the EUR 2.5 billion per quarter. It's a sixth consecutive quarter with an order intake above EUR 2 billion, and I would say gives us, in uncertain times, a solid base for the time, for the time to come.
Going in the details, we could see a strong quarter for Pulp & Paper, +3% above EUR 1 billion for the first quarter. In Metals, as I said, we saw a small decline, resulting of a further downturn in automotive and an increased order intake from the steel industry. Hydropower, sensational first quarter with EUR 1.9 billion in order intake. As I said, it was a bit this cumulated bookings. We had, as you might remember, quite a weak quarter four in Hydropower. I think around EUR 650 million at that time in the Q4 last year. We had some orders which could not be fully booked as they have not been in force.
Some of the projects went into force in March quite early, a bit earlier than we expected. It was, I would say, a bit cumulated in March, these bookings, which resulted in this very high order intake. We are happy what we have in the backlog we can execute, and I think that's very good. Environment & Energy, a drop to Q1. However, we do not see that there is a fundamental decline, but we rather having an optimistic view on the quarters to come in these markets.
On the, if we have a quick look on the regions, you can see that we have a significant increase in Asia and in South America, and that is mainly driven by the steep increase in Hydropower. Come to that in more detail later. If we look to the revenue, as I said, revenue grows by 2% nominal. If we add this foreign exchange translation impact, we are at 6% up compared to first quarter of last year. I would say it's on a good track. The growth is driven by Pulp & Paper and Hydropower, while Metals and Environment & Energy, we see a slight decline. The backlog, as I said, record backlog EUR 12.4 billion.
Never been that high in Andritz history. I would say two significant effects that should be recognized. The one is Hydropower now, basically represents 50% of the backlog and that also turns I would say extends the backlog a bit longer. The conversion rate is decreasing as the hydro projects have a longer average execution time than for example Pulp & Paper and Metals. If we look to the EBITA on a comparable basis and on a reported basis have increased by EUR 2 respectively EUR 3 billion. We would say have the order execution has been improved. Restructuring measures that we that we had initiated last year, especially in Metals and Pulp & Paper, now bearing fruit.
I would say we are on a solid track on the profitability, 8.2% respectively or 8.1% stable compared with the previous year. Service business is nicely growing. Share of service revenue now is 45% for the last 12 months, 46% for the first quarter of 2026. That's an all-time high. Also the service revenue could see a growth of 4% year-over-year in Q1. I would say we are on a good track there, further stabilizing our revenues and increasing also our profitability.
Somebody took away my control, and that's probably intended because now I hand over to Vanessa to give us the details on the financial performance. Vanessa.
Yeah. Thank you, Joachim. Good morning, everybody, and also warm welcome from my side. With respect to your time, I will keep it short and focus on the key messages for today. To briefly resume what Joachim have already remarked, order backlog at a new all-time high driven by a remarkable order intake that led us to a book-to-bill of above 2. As the momentum is driven by our strong Hydropower business with typically longer execution cycles, the backlog to sales conversion will change, and therefore, this is not triggering an immediate impact on our sales guidance for this year. Nevertheless, revenue continues on an upwards trajectory despite the negative FX effects, and our profitability remains stable.
Looking at the key figures from an CFO perspective, Q1 confirms that the growth we achieved comes with very strong financial quality. Operating cash flow increased to EUR 89 million, 22% above last year. At the same time, we kept a strong liquidity position of EUR 724 million, despite the elevated CapEx and despite our remarkable M&A activities from last year at 25. The ROIC recovered to 19.5%, well above WACC, while operating net working capital improved sequentially again to EUR 961 million, showing that cash discipline is now really visible on our balance sheet. The earnings bridge shows that the higher revenue base translated into a modest EBITDA increase to EUR 190 million and a 10.6% EBITDA margin, as you can see.
The depreciation and IFRS 3 amortization moved up only moderately, mainly reflecting a CapEx and acquisition effects. With a tax rate, which is improving to 24.6%, net income also increased to EUR 92 million, and the net profit margin remained stable at 5.1%, confirming actually a resilient profitability despite a slightly lower financial result. Turning to free cash flow, we are starting from the EBITDA of EUR 190 million. The main operational improvement in free cash flow generation came from a much lower net working capital outflow than last year. Improved cash taxes are compensating for our other project provision related and hedging effects and enabling operating cash flow to rise to EUR 89 million.
After EUR 15 million higher CapEx than last year spent for growth service, digitalization, and innovation, our free cash flow reached EUR 25 million, moderately above the prior year period. Last year we acquired LDX in Q1, you might remember, and this year we have taken it a bit more easy for the first quarter, so no acquisitions, but the payment for our latest acquisition, Sanzheng, that was closed in Q4 2025 was processed in Q1, so the payout is also included here. Looking at the operating net working capital, that remains lean at around 12% of revenue and has improved sequentially again following the seasonal Q4 2025 cash release. The general increase compared to the exceptionally low levels seen a few years ago reflects a more normal business mix, the larger service share and also the consolidation from acquisition.
The key message is that net working capital is back in the recent run rate corridor and remains, of course, a management focus for 2026. The detailed split shows two different moving parts, we have the contract working capital on the bottom part continues to improve, supported by higher contract liabilities and prepayments from the good order intake in Q1. On the upper part, the trade working capital increased seasonally in Q1 and is also influenced by our service growth and also the recent acquisitions. Structurally, the shift from large overtime projects towards more mid-sized and completed contract orders is increasing also the work in progress. Disciplined inventory and project execution will, of course, remain central for us. The quarterly operating cash flow remains also volatile.
You know this is very typical for project business. As mentioned in Q1, operating cash flow of EUR 89 million was supported by better operating profit and lower net working capital outflows, allowing for higher CapEx. The long-term message is that higher top line, improved margins and also better cash conversion are sustaining a structural stronger cash generation profile here. Looking at our net liquidity, this remains a strategic strength, I would say, even after the deliberate reduction of our liquid funds over recent years driven by higher CapEx and M&A spendings. That was, of course, especially remarkable in 2025. Compared with the year-end 2025, net liquidity improved slightly to around EUR 724 million, supported by stronger operating cash flow as shown and a lower M&A cash out for Q1.
Considering also the EUR 500 million revolving credit facility, which is unutilized for Q1, Andritz retains substantial financial flexibility for dividends, organic investment and disciplined both on M&A. Turning to the ROIC. As indicated in our last earnings call, ROIC recovered to 19.5% in Q1 2026 from the acquisition-related dilution seen in 2025. The recovery was driven by improved NOPAT, so that last year we had only the pro rata acquisitions included. Now we have, of course, the full impact also from the acquisitions in the NOPAT, and it was also from lower invested capital, showing that the recent capital deployment is really being absorbed without weakening the value creation profile. With ROIC still materially above WACC, Andritz continues to generate returns well above its cost of capital.
To close on the summary, our first key theme remains resilient growth. Record order intake, record backlog, a book-to-bill above 2, supporting the revenue trajectory even through a higher Hydropower share that will lengthen the backlog conversion. The second key theme is financial discipline and flexibility. Margin remains stable, operating net working capital improved sequentially, and cash flow and net liquidity remained solid, thereby giving Andritz certainly the room to fund for growth and business development whilst staying financially strong here. The third key theme is value creation coming from the ROIC that has recovered and that remains industry-leading level, implying substantial value creation significantly above our WACC. For the overview of our segments and some details, Joachim will now guide you through again.
Thank you, Vanessa. Let's have a quick look on the segments. Let's start with Pulp & Paper. I think we are happy to report that the growth trend that was basically initiated in Q4 last year continued. I would say we are back on a solid growth trend in order intake backlog revenue and earnings. That is quite good. We could book two large orders with exceptional size in Q1. One was a biomass power plant in Europe and a large paper machine in Africa for Général Emballage.
Will be the largest paper machine in Africa, so we are quite proud that customer has picked Andritz to supply that very important machine. We could see in Q1 a very, very nice growth in the service business. Now, for the first time, we have surpassed the 60%. It's now 62% of our revenue came from service in Q1 this year. I would say, if we look in total, we can say a solid, strong performance in Pulp & Paper, even without these mega projects from South America. If we turn to Metals, as I said, it's a bit of a split view from the market side.
We saw a downturn in automotive, and we saw an upturn in the market in steel. We look to investment sentiment in the steel industry. I would say this would continue to improve over the year. For automotive, we could see towards the end of the year a recovery also there. We need to continue to size our capacities accordingly because the changes in these markets are, I would say, quite fundamental, and we need to adjust ourselves to be to stay competitive there. On the other side, you can see that we do that. We are on the EBITDA margin.
We are stable, 5.3% comparable EBITDA margin, despite the ongoing adjustments. I would say we're on a good track. We are solid in order execution. Looking to Hydropower, I would say we have only good things to report. To the order intake, EUR 1.9 billion already set. We can expect that we will have this year also, I would say, have the sixth consecutive year in a row where we will grow order intake and revenue compared with the previous year.
As I told you already, in previous calls, this is a long trend of growing demand in electrical energy and in renewable electrical energy. We do not see that there will be a prompt end in this demand. Project outlook is strong, but less strong than in Q1 if we look to order intake. On the regional distribution, I would say that we are quite happy to report that this huge order intake is nicely spread around the regions. A lot of orders from Asia.
That's mainly India and New Zealand and the Philippines, but also very strong in South America. For us, it's good that we that basically we can we can provide the execution through separated supply chains, as we are quite self-sufficient in engineering manufacturing in Asia, and also in South America. We do not need to pass by the Middle East with a lot of with a lot of goods, which definitely makes us a bit robust to the political surprises coming from that coming from that region. The backlog with the EUR 6 billion will take some years to bring that down.
We see from that we will continue to grow our revenue this year and in the years to come. You can see from the employees that we need to continue to build up capacities there in order to provide the projects on time to our to our customers. Service revenue slightly declined, but I would say it grew, but capital business grew a bit further. Profitability further increased, and that gives us the confidence that we move the profitability in Hydropower to the target level that we communicated. Environment & Energy, I would say is a is a mixed picture.
We have a low order intake, but on the market side, we see quite a stable development, so we expect to recover that over the year. On the profitability side, we remain stable on the comparable EBITDA margin, despite the decrease, the slight decrease in revenue. We have a good share of service of 50%, and we are quite confident to keep in that business area on track.
If the uncertainties in the investment climate for topics on the energy transition will be removed, then we definitely see a bit better future here. If we look to the guidance. Impact of trade barriers, basically, no news to tell you. I would say very limited impacts from the war in the Middle East from our side. First of all, as I said, we are quite independent in our supply chains in the Asian market, especially in Hydropower, which is now growing. However, indirect impacts from increased energy prices and constraints in through inflationary trends, of course we cannot run away from that.
Foreign exchange translation impact has been quite heavy also in this quarter, EUR 71.6 million. We expect that this trend will be significantly smaller in the quarters to come as the main strengthening move of the euro compared with major currencies like US dollar, RMB and Brazilian real, it will not be as significant in the quarters to come as it was in the previous four quarters. Guidance for 2026 is confirmed as we reported revenue between EUR 8 billion and EUR 8.3 billion and comparable EBITDA margin between 8.7% and 9.1%.
We also can confirm our midterm targets for 2027, with a revenue between EUR 9 billion and EUR 10 billion and a comparable EBITDA margin above 9%. That is basically what we wanted to tell you. No changes on the comparable margin targets for the business areas. That's what we wanted to tell you. We are available for any questions you might have. Thank you very much for your patience.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question from the webinar may click the Q&A button on the bottom left side of your screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star f ollowed by one on your telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press the Lower Your Hand button from the webinar or press star and two on your telephone. Anyone who has a question may queue up now. We have the first question coming from Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes. Hi. Good morning, Dr. Schönbeck, Vanessa and Matthias. I got a few, and I'll ask one at a time. My first one is on Hydropower. I mean, you're strong. Your orders are quite strong, and most of them seems to be new projects. Maybe, if you can start with how does the margin in Q1 orders compare with what you have in your backlog at the end of 2025? Second part of that question is that, when we look at Hydropower orders at your competitors, we don't see a same level of strength, so it indicates that you may be gaining market share. Can you confirm that? If that is the case, what is driving this market share gain? That's the first one to start.
Am I on? Can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear.
Very good. Akash, thank you for your question. I would say the margins, I would say, are good. The market is good and, therefore we could also, I would say we could book at good margins despite the large, the huge volumes. On the market share, we, I believe that we have gained market share. I can confirm that. We see a very strong growth in India. And, I believe we have a, I would say, more than average market share there because we are the only supplier who is fully localized with their own workshops for turbines and our own workshop for generators.
That makes us very competitive. And I would say we benefit over proportionally from the growth there.
Thank you. The second question I have is on large pulp orders. How do you see prospects for large pulp order awards? You were not promising a lot before the war in the Middle East broke out. In general, is there a risk that customer may need more time to decide given the uncertainty, or do you think that may be irrelevant given the lead times in large pulp projects are, like, more than three years, and therefore this near-term uncertainty could be a noise?
I would say on a rational thinking, you could think that this impact, the short-term impact might not influence. When you make investment decisions of that size, usually, I think people do not like to do that in uncertain times. I would say we rather see a further delay to see the outcome and also to have a better assessment on the time how long this conflict may last. As I said, we do not take any position on about the timing of investment decisions for large pulp mills in South America.
What we see is that the trend in China, in the paper industry to backward integrate their paper-making activities into pulp making, that this continues. These projects are smaller in size for us, but they continue.
Thank you. My last one is for Vanessa on M&A. If you look at last year, we had quite good activity on M&A in first half. We had a bit of slowdown in second half. I think we have seen the same slowdown in first quarter of 2026 as well. Maybe, if you can talk about what is driving this slower activity. Are you looking first to integrate the companies that you have acquired in early part of 2025? How shall we think about prospect for bolt-on M&A or maybe even larger M&A in the rest of the year? Thank you.
Hi, Akash. Thank you for your question. Well, I would say let's see. We definitely continue on our bolt-on M&A strategy, and we are still on this. It's about the targets. Of course, we firstly integrate and focus on this. This does not mean that we stop our activities to screen the market and, yeah, and take further action. It depends on the targets that are available and that we see as a good fit to our company. There's no deliberate slowdown. It's just rather on selecting well.
Thank you.
Next question comes from Sven Weier from UBS. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is also on hydro, because especially on Brazil, we obviously saw the hydro power auction in the Brazilian markets earlier this year. I was wondering if the orders that you received in Brazil were related to that, or are you still expecting more to come? That's the first one. Thank you.
This was related to that auction. At least it was related to an auction, whether it was related to the auction that you're referring to. Our customer won a majority in one of these auctions and that drove the order intake on our side.
Okay. That's basically fully reflected into one already?
Yeah. Right.
The other question I had was just on Pulp & Paper and the paper order you got, which. I mean, that's a board order, right?
Yeah
W hich, I mean, I think at the CMD, last CMD, you kind of announced that you wanted to become a stronger player in the board market. I mean, is this, like, now the biggest order you ever had and really the first major one, and how should we look at this from here? Also, maybe in terms of project risk, I mean, if this is kind of the first in kind big one that you do, what is the kind of typically project risk that you would see on the project?
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. I would say it's for us, it's the first order of that size that we execute in that region out of, basically out of Europe. It is on the risk side, we are not too concerned as there are no elements in that we have not built a couple of times. This was mainly done in rebuilds, where our strength was over the past years, converting printing paper machines to board machines.
I would say on that, on that side, we see, we do not see a risk. I would say it is definitely paying into our strategy to become a stronger player in the paper and board market. Also, we can demonstrate that we can build, make a new built machine, which at the end is less complex and less complicated than to make a rebuild of a printing paper machine into a board machine.
It's sad to say that, but in general, the pipeline for board projects is still a bit tough given the situation in the market, or?
Oh, yes. I mean, you probably know that the paper and board industry is, I would say, still in a difficult situation with low prices and high capacities. We see, especially in Europe, we see closures, but also in China we have a rather low utilization rate in this industry. We are very happy that we have been selected for, I would say, the only new investment in this part of the world for the past years. Yeah.
Is it fair to say that probably very competitive against Valmet and Voith in that situation?
Yeah.
You're happy with the margins of the contract?
We are happy with the margin of the contract. We are happy to see that we are competitive also for these new machines. Yeah.
Thank you. My final question maybe for Vanessa, on the advances because you obviously had this huge order intake, contract liabilities went up to EUR 100 million-ish. I suspect this was not the total amount of advances that you are going to receive on the back of the EUR 3.6 billion order intake. Is that fair?
Yes, of course. I mean, that's kind of mixed and we will see some more in Q2. It depends really on the order and on the contract. Some orders get enforced with the advanced payment and some we receive the cash somewhat later and some even don't have it. Yeah. It's a mixture. It's not all in Q1 directly related to the order intake.
Okay. Understood. Thank you both.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Christoph Biefeld from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thank you for taking my question. I would like to start with Pulp & Paper. Can you give us some insight into the operating trends in the service market and contrast revenue and order trends in pulp service versus the board and paper service market if there are any? Thank you.
I would say in general, the paper service market is still down. Utilization rate is low in China, in Asia, in Europe, also North America. That is why we see also I would say a pressure on the volume there. On the pulp side, we see growth. We see growth because we are expanding our service offerings. Some of the acquisitions last year, but also organically. On the pulp side, we definitely benefit from the increased market share we had on the capital side, especially in South America, but also in China, where the I would say the fundamental demand for service parts, but also smaller modifications and repairs is increasing. These are basically the two driving trends.
Once the market in paper turns up, we will of course also significantly benefit there.
Thank you for that. The second question is on Hydropower. Can you remind us on the contract structure and your ability to pass through rising input costs to customers, please?
Yeah. Due to the long execution time of these hydro contracts, we basically have in all or let's say in 90% of these contracts, we do not have fixed price contracts, but we have price adjustment schemes in that are related to, I would say, regionally developed formulas on input costs, labor, inflation, material. I would say we are I would say well-protected there.
Thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Patrick Steiner from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Patrick Steiner speaking. Congratulations to the good result. Two questions remaining from my side. First of all, after this very good order intake in Hydropower in Q1, how should we think about the order intake run rate on a quarterly basis going forward? Secondly, I mean, you've discussed already the Iran war impact, it would also be interesting what you see on the customer side and if you see any kind of supply chain issues in Asia. Thank you.
As you know, we do not give outlook and guidance on order intake. Maybe two c omments. The run rate per quarter in Hydro will be lower than Q1, but we expect that the order intake will be for the full year higher than last year. On the impact on the war with Iran, as I said, we are with the orders we booked recently, we do not have a lot of traffic of goods need to pass to pass the Middle East, which I would say gives us quite a quite a good level of comfort that we will not see direct impacts from whatever is happening there.
As I said, we cannot take ourselves out of these indirect impacts.
Okay. Thank you very much. The Q1 order intake, would you see this like more as a one-off or should we expect higher quarterly demand compared to 2025, for example?
As I said, that for sure is a one-off and it's more a, I would say a accumulation of bookings. As I said, some had been delayed from Q4 and some were, then, become effective, a bit earlier than anticipated. Yeah. It's for sure an exceptional quarter.
All right. Thank you very much. I'll get back in line.
The next question comes from Daniel Lion from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks. I would like to ask you about the development in Hydro and its impact on your improving pricing power and actually also the backlog levels and revenue developments. First, how do you see the trajectory that revenue will gradually catch up with the backlog level trends going forward? The second is obviously maybe slightly premature because we are not yet in the margin corridor that you guided. Given the pricing power that's improving for you, what does this mean for margins in two, three years when the current orders start to materialize?
I would say, and I communicated that last time when we presented Q4 results in March, that we are very confident to move hydropower into the margin corridor of 7%-9%. We have better price quality in the recently booked orders compared to the legacy backlog and as the legacy backlog is moving out of the backlog gradually. We see a trend and we see this trend remaining upwards. That's basically what we see. The first question was about how we work down the backlog or what?
I didn't fully get your first question.
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the question, you know, also relating to historical developments, usually you have a backlog to revenues of roughly two. Now we are moving, actually it's above three. You know, there's a big gap for revenue to catch up the strong backlog that you currently have. I was just wondering how quickly you expect this to happen? Also relating to your capacities, what is actually realistic to generate based on capacities you have in place and expect to build up going forward?
Yeah. We will only take orders that we can deliver. That is for sure. I mentioned that we are building up capacities. You could see that on the employee side. We had invested, and we are still investing quite extensively. In the hydro for the hydro business that is at the moment that's happening in Austria, but also in India, in Brazil, and also in North America. In order to prepare ourselves with these for these projects.
As I said, we will see that the backlog will turn a bit slower into revenue than you could see that for the previous years as a share of the hydro backlog is higher. Execution time for hydro projects are between rather three to five years than two to three years as we see, as we know it from Pulp & Paper.
Okay, thanks. A last one on restructuring. Can you provide us a number that we should expect for the current fiscal year?
A number, a number for what?
Of, yeah, like, how much would you expect to invest into restructuring, especially for Metals, but maybe also slightly in?
I don't have that number on hand. I would say, it's probably fair to be that it will be in a similar order of magnitude than 25.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my follow-up. I have a more of a high-level question. I think it's been almost two months since we had this Middle East crisis, and still the situation is not resolved and we are having a major energy crisis. Dr. Schönbeck, I mean, you have a lot of businesses that are quite relevant in this whole debate on energy transition. You have hydro, you have biomass boiler, you have automotive business. I think there are growing optimism on EV sales, EV, electric vehicle sales uptake, as people might force to switch from IC engine car to electric cars to bring down their cost.
I wanted to ask, like, you know, as we had, has there been any change in your conversation with customers on demand in some of the customer industries? Like, are you seeing any change in behavior already that they are probably keen to go ahead and do something sooner than later? Or is it still a bit too early? Thank you.
I would say it's, it might be a bit too early. Of course we see that in a general trend that high energy costs or high energy prices is driving this energy transition. Yeah. That is for sure. It reminded everybody that if we have decoupled Europe from Russian gas and we went into huge contracts with Qatar, that if Qatar cannot supply, we still are in a difficult situation. I think the key drivers for the energy transition are still there. To provide a solid diversified portfolio I think is needed. I would say industry politicians and our customers have understood that.
Having said that, I would say, project activities are there, but decision-making has not happened yet.
Thank you. Just a housekeeping on Metals. What is the rough split between auto and steel for the segment at, in revenue term? Thank you.
I would say it's about. Let's say it's 40% automotive, 40% steel, and 20% other industries.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Matthias Pfeifenberger.
Yes. Thanks a lot to the management board for their elaborations and to the audience for the excellent questions and your continued interest in Andritz. We of course remain available for follow-ups after this very excellent quarter, and I would now like to pass on the word again to Dr. Schönbeck , our CEO, for final remarks. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Matthias. I would say we are, as I said, we are happy with the first quarter, one of the most troubled quarters we could see in geopolitical developments. Confidence of our customers remains strong to trust Andritz also in these times to provide orders for us, and that helps us to look to the future quite confident based on the high backlog. Strong improvement in the service business and also improvements in our profitability. We also can expect that next crisis, we also can take on quite proactively. That's about what we wanted to say. Thank you once more for your attention, and then talk to you in three months from now.
Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference now over and you may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.