29.04.2025

Mixed but solid start for Kalmar

Finnish container crane and reachstacker manufacturer Kalmar has published its first quarter results, with lower sales and profits, but a steep rise in order intake.

Revenues: Total revenues for the three months were nine percent lower than for the same period last year at €398 million. This was made up of New Equipment sales of €252 million down 17 percent, and Services revenue of €145 million up six percent on the year.

Order intake jumped 20 percent to €480 million, with New Equipment orders soaring 31 percent to €322 million, while orders for Services were two percent higher at €145 million.

The Order Book /backlog at the end of the quarter was €1.04 billion, up nine percent on last year.

Pre- Tax profit was nine percent lower at €43.4 million, while Net Debt was €23 million, compared to no debt a year ago when it demerged from Cargotec., but was down from €76 million at the start of the year.

Chief executive Sami Niiranen said: “The first quarter started off well for Kalmar. We delivered a solid quarter with good profitability despite lower sales volumes and order intake was strong. Financial performance for the quarter was solid.”

“We have progressed with the implementation of the driving excellence initiative and during the first quarter 2025, a run rate of approximately €9 million of annualised gross efficiency improvements have been secured, the majority from sourcing gains.”

“We saw some early signs of demand recovery in the beginning of the year particularly in the distribution end customer segment, which has been subdued for a very long time. However, the world today is different than a few months ago with an increased level of uncertainties related to recent tariff announcements, geopolitical tensions and the risk of a global macroeconomic downturn. It is too early to draw any conclusions on how all this will affect our industry, the demand environment and global trade in the short term, but we will monitor the situation closely and have made different scenarios and are ready to act swiftly, if needed.”

“All in all, as we navigate the increasingly complex business environment of 2025 and the uncertainty of tariffs, our strategy, global footprint, and strong underlying foundations provide us with continued confidence. Our focus will remain the same by staying close to our customers and delivering on our targets.”

vertikal Comment

This is a respectable set of numbers from Kalmar, when all things are considered, and it is encouraging to see that, yet another company is seeing a pick up in order intake as the year progresses. They do though largely relate to activities before the mad tariff regimes reached their peak.

At Bauma most manufacturers chose to adopt a ‘wait and see’ strategy on tariffs, hoping that common sense would eventually creep in, as appears to be happening as the situation calms a little.

Port handling equipment sales will be an interesting indicator for what is going on in terms of world trade. So, worth watching this space.