Kalmar: No material changes in the outlook

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 10/7/2025 at 7:00 am EEST.

Yesterday, Kalmar held an analyst and investor call ahead of the Q3 silent period. Based on the company's comments, there has been no significant change in the market situation compared to the outlook provided with the Q2 earnings report. Kalmar will publish its Q3 results on October 31.

Guidelines for the operating environment unchanged

The company described the market situation in Q3 as largely unchanged from the comments made in connection with the Q2 result. Thus, the previous comments regarding a subdued market in the second half of the year due to prevailing uncertainty (e.g., geo- and trade policy tensions) remain valid. Geographically, the company noted that this is particularly evident in the United States, whereas the situation in Europe is relatively good. The company also stated that this is supported by the activity of connected devices, though more detailed information on the development of the installed base will have to wait until the result is published. According to the company, its expectations regarding market developments are also partly reflected in various market forecasts. Of these, Drewry's container traffic forecasts for the current year had risen (just under +5% vs. +2% previously), but despite this, the company anticipated a slower second half of the year. This is due to factors such as the fairly moderate and declining growth forecasts for next year in terms of both container traffic and global industrial production (with growth in both areas at just under 2% next year). 

Kalmar noted that Q3 also saw fewer order announcements than previous quarters. At the same time, however, it emphasized that timing factors can influence the quarter in which orders fall, as in the case of straddle carriers. In our opinion, it is not advisable to draw overly strong conclusions from individual orders due to the timing of order announcements or possible delays related to them. However, given the company's earlier remarks on market conditions and, for instance, the larger straddle carrier orders placed in previous quarters, the current Q3 order forecasts, both our own (423 MEUR) and the consensus (416 MEUR), are lower than in H1 (cf. Q1'25: 480 MEUR and Q2’25: 450 MEUR). 

Impact of delivery delays limited

Regarding the US market and tariffs, the call largely echoed the company's previous message, with the company commenting that a significant portion of its US revenue comes from locally manufactured terminal tractors, their spare parts, and services. On the other hand, the company shared some extra context about the most recent US tariffs (known as Section 232) that were a topic of discussion during the visit to the Polish factory (see our review here). The company reiterated that, for Kalmar, Section 232 applies to forklift trucks and empty container handlers manufactured in Europe while reach stackers and straddle carriers are not subject to it. As we have previously mentioned, Kalmar temporarily suspended its deliveries to the US until the situation became clearer. According to the company, this impacted at least the delivery of forklift trucks, though the impact of these delayed deliveries should not be exaggerated. This was largely in line with our previous assessment, in which we estimated that the impact on  Q3 and Q4 figures would be slight but fairly limited at the group level. Based on these comments, we estimate that these effects are largely within the normal margin of error associated with delivery timing. 

As before, the company also commented that it would respond to the effects of Section 232 through pricing as it has with other tariffs. We estimate that the company will be able to incorporate these changes into its own pricing quite quickly. According to the company, uncertainty is instead linked to end-use demand in the US due to likely widespread price increases and general market uncertainty, which was also our assessment after visiting the factory. The company promised to provide further information regarding US tariffs on the earnings call.

Considering yesterday's phone call overall, Kalmar's big-picture view seems pretty much the same, so we don't see any immediate pressure to change our estimates.