Metso Oyj (M6Q.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone. Welcome to highly anticipated Metso's Capital Markets Day 2025. We have a pleasure to invite all of you who have joined us at the Helsinki Airport in person today, and also a warm welcome to everybody participating online. We heard that there were some unpleasant surprises when it comes to flights to Helsinki today. So we're glad that you made it via webcast with us today. In Metso, we start with safety. So in this room, we have emergency exits here on your left-hand side near the stage and there in the back. And if everything happens, we just follow instructions. We don't use elevators and we'll behave in good order. So it will be all good. Looking at our agenda. We have interesting presentations for you this afternoon. We will momentarily start with our President and CEO, Sami Takaluoma, talking about our strategy, which was published last week. After him, CFO, Pasi Kyckling, will talk about financial excellence. And after that, we will take questions for both Pasi and Sami at the same time. After that, we go to our first coffee break for 20 minutes. And coming back from the break, we start discussing our segments. And the segment presentations, first aggregates and then Minerals will be handled by 2 people each. So we have Markku Simula, who's heading Aggregates Equipment business, joined by Saso Kitanoski, who is Head of Consumables. They talk about Aggregates. And Minerals will be presented by Piia Karhu, Head of Minerals Equipment; and then Heikki Metsala, who's heading Services business area. And you need to remember that both consumables and Services business area, which are our aftermarket businesses, they serve both aggregates and minerals customers. But to be effective, we have chosen these pairs to present their segments like I mentioned. After the segment presentations each, we take questions as much as we have time, then we go for another break. And the final segment of this CMD will be about deep dives into our businesses. In aggregates, we'll be highlighting digital business where we are making a difference and have competitive edge. And similarly, in Minerals, we have strong expertise when it comes to energy-efficient combination. And we have [ Jako Hutapelto ] discussing digital business in aggregates and then Giuseppe Campanelli talking about energy efficiency in combination. And after these presentations, some closing remarks, final Q&A, then we wrap up and whoever is here in person can continue discussions outside the room and webcast ends about quarter past 6. So this is our agenda. We hope you enjoy the show. And next, we will start walking you through how we go beyond so that our customers and stakeholders can go further, so that all of us, Metsonites can go stronger and ultimately, world to move forward. And with that, it's a great pleasure to introduce our President and CEO, Sami Takaluoma.

Very, very, very much welcome also from my behalf, both the audience, great audience here in the Helsinki and also all of you online. Very exciting day for all of us in Metso and especially the leadership team members here today to be able to finally launch and start to talk about the strategy, how we are going to make this very great company even greater when we go forward in time. And let's start a little bit looking at what has happened already and so far. So 2020, when Metso Outotec company was created through the merger, we have, of course, given at that time certain commitments and our journey last 4, 5 years has been very successful. The green bar here is representing our own employee satisfaction and employee engagement. And that was needed step #1 to get into new company employees fully engaged for the mission and strategy that we had in place at that time. When that started to happen and satisfaction engagement improve, we saw that the next one that started to improve was customer satisfaction, which makes a lot of sense when you have engaged employees to take care of the customers, the customers do feel that. And as a result of happy, loyal, satisfied customers, then the red line, which is representing our adjusted EBITA started to climb according to our plans. And this is very important for us as a foundation also when we have started to work with this new chapter of Metso. 59 eNPS is the whole 17,000 employees, and we do have a very high response rate. We clock close to 90% of the employees giving their opinion. And the 63% is the pulse survey that we do in between the full surveys, which is for the white-collar people. And both 59% and 63%, they do represent in this [ peak on ] environment, top 5% of the industrial companies in the whole world. So that position is very good, and it has already yielded the results as we see from the chart. We also have been giving our previous targets and where are we with those? Most of them, we have achieved or are very close to achieve. So 2020, we set the target for adjusted EBITA to 15%. When we started to be very close, we have revised that target to 17% and end of last year, the number that we actually achieved was 16.5%. So almost there. We had a target for maintaining our investment grade and that we have successfully done. Then we have had the target from the financial perspective to pay out through dividends at least 50% of earnings per share, and that has been done every year. Last year, the share was actually 63%. And then 5 years ago, we committed very strongly to the 1.5-degree plans when it comes to sustainability. We have invested a lot to this progress, and we are well on track to achieve those targets as well. So in summary, we have been able to communicate what our targets are and also we have a track record to be able to then deliver according to the target setting. Now we have been in very interesting phase. Why this day is very special for many of us is that this is now revealing the hard work of close to 6 months that has been ongoing inside the company. We have involved more than 150 people from Metso to the work of the new strategy. That's much, much more than in the previous years. So we really wanted to get the insight from all around the organization for this work. And it was very clear that we are looking for the future with a very positive eyes from the perspective that what our strategy is going to be about. It's going to be a growth strategy. That has been one of the building blocks all the time, not only the top line, but we still have capabilities to continue the EBITA journey as well. We set a very clear target for our strategy work that we want to work around being #1, being the leader of the product, leader of the technology leader of the solution. And also, thirdly, we put very high emphasis on making sure that we gear up almost everything that we do in the strategy around the aftermarket intensity and captivity going forward. And not a very noble thing, but we also put from the very first day of the strategy work customer in center of what we are planning to do. We have 2 segments, Aggregates and Minerals, and we looked what these customers do need today and especially tomorrow and how we, as a Metso can be the solution provider and value-add provider for these customers going forward. And that's how after a lot of work, we are now here. Our strategy has a name. It's We Go beyond. And that represents a lot of things, both inside the company, in our stakeholder groups like customers and shareholders. And it is the one umbrella that will connect all the dots in Metso for the next 5 years. We have 4 strategic objectives for this period. We will be the best in the customer experience. That is all the time in our mind. And I already mentioned the importance of the aftermarket. So higher aftermarket share is one very clear objective that we have set to ourselves in this period. And then we will be the frontrunner of both safety and sustainability going forward. And as a result, we are delivering financial performance that is in the category of excellence from the perspective of our company. Then we have 3 strategic focus areas. Growth, excellence and Metso #1. I will talk about all of these 3 more in the next slides. And then we need the enablers. And the enablers are exactly what I started this presentation. They are the people. They are the engaged Metsonites all around the world. We are fostering the customer-centric growth culture. We need to have very engaged Metsonites also going forward to be successful. And then we need to hold the industry-leading capabilities, understanding what we have today, where we might have gaps and then how to close those gaps going forward as soon as possible. But let's talk about those focus areas, starting from the growth. We Go Beyond, it's driven by very sharp focus and prioritization. And what does this mean? If we take an example of 5 years ago when the company Metso Outotec at that time was born. We had and still have the widest portfolio of technology solutions in the minerals processing space. I am used to tell it this way that where the Epiroc stops, Metso starts and goes through all the phases all the way to the metal refining. And that has been our portfolio and is our portfolio. And now in this strategy work and now going forward as a Metso that is focused, we have understood more clearly that what is the value and position and identity of different technology solutions inside this very wide portfolio. So we have solutions that are already today, Metso is #1. We are leading the position game out there in the market. The profitability of those solutions is good or acceptable for the group targets. In there, we want to further strengthen our position as the #1. We want to make the gap to #2 even more wide. And that work is then continuing to do a lot that Metso has done before, but with more fast and fearless way to really strengthen that position. Then we have the black box there, which is the reaching #1 position. It's a business solutions, what we do today, but we are not yet market #1 in the world. We see that these businesses and solutions can be high-margin businesses. They have a very good aftermarket intensity, and they have been chosen as our accelerated growth areas. We want to invest a lot in these growth drivers. Capital allocation, meaning acquisitions, for example, they will be going for this category, really boosting the growth in the areas where we want to reach the #1 or very strong #2 position during the strategy period. Then the third one, improve profitability in Select solutions. When we did crunch the numbers in this work from many different angles, we also gained insight ourselves of which technology solutions truly serve already today Metso's targets for the future and which ones are behind. And in this third category, then we have those technology solutions that actually need to do more work first to improve the profitability and then start to go after the aggressive growth and plays, of course, very important role in our profitability journey that, that continues. So this is a significant change than to the past. There is very clear identity now for people who work with certain solutions. They know what is expected and what is going to be the direction of actions going forward. Good. That was the growth part. Excellence is then all about really the customers. There is not an industry leader out there who wouldn't be really excellent in taking care of their customers. And this is something that we do well today, but tomorrow, we want to go beyond the normal level that we do today. So one Metso customer experience is very important for us in this journey now. There needs to be a very professional, good feeling for the customers to be dealt with Metso despite the location, geographical or business that they want to do with us. Industry-leading service near customers is going to play a very critical role in the near future. That is required by many, if not all, of the customers. There is a global shortage of skilled workforce for mines and aggregate plants, and that increases the demand from OEMs like Metso. And Metso's position is excellent. We have the widest service footprint already in place, and we are investing more. We have invested in the couple of last years, and we will also continue to invest to be close to the customers. I can quote one discussion with the company's CEO when we started to discuss ongoing project. And he said that "Sami, we are not looking for this project the lowest possible cost for the equipment package. We are looking a partner who we can work to get the right package to be delivered during the building of the mine and that partner needs to be with us when we actually run the mine. Because we don't make any money by building a mine. We make all the money when we run the mine." So that's where the presence and the support staff, local support staff close to the mine is going to be very critical going forward as well. And that links from supplier to the partner. So we definitely have value-add capabilities towards our customers, and they are then falling into the category of being actually a partner, working with the customers much more than the transactional supplier customer base only. And then we are looking at our go-to-market models. We have a lot of different type of customers. They have different type of needs and Metso is looking to make sure that we are able to provide the excellence throughout our different go-to-market models as well going forward. And the third focus area is Metso #1. So we will become the market leader and the first preference. We have 2 segments, both of them Metso is going to be the #1 . Number one means that we are also #1 in new innovation, new products, new improvements created for the industry and as mentioned, the customer proximity, which is very important to be #1 in that one. And that makes us the #1 choice for our customers and also #1 choice for our partners. We also need to take care of the full supply chain. So when we have suppliers as partners, we are going to be the #1 choice for them. And then very important is the last one, to be the #1 choice for current and future Metsonites. We have a lot of skills inside the company today. So we, of course, want to keep that talent and skill in the company. And at the same time, we need to ensure that we are a very attractive employer for the professionals out there, ensuring that we are able to grow and move forward with our agenda. And I cannot emphasize enough what is the importance of the people to success of the company in this kind of industrial aftermarket-intensive area. And that's why we are also cultivating our culture. As you saw, the satisfaction numbers are high. So we have a very good foundation. But to achieve our targets that we are setting to ourselves now, we also need to take a look at how do we shape our culture to fit better for the new next chapter of Metso. So we have already a cutting-edge technology in many of the solutions that we provide to the markets. And now what we also need to do is to make sure that the customer value is powering and embedded in all of those solutions that we provide. In Metso, we have been collaborating and we do collaborate. But now we have a common understanding that we will totally crush the silos, internal silos that we have had inside the company, and we work now as one Metso moving forward. Metso has been last 4, 5 years, very steady and reliable company, delivering as promised, and that's good. We want to, of course, keep that. But on top of that, we also need to change our mindset to be fast and fearless. The world around is changing fast, and we don't have any more time to wait in many times. So these are the cultural shifts that we are already started to develop further. And the people part, maybe I shared this as well that last week, we had internal launch. And the first time ever in Metso, we organized that so that it was live for all 17,000 employees. And we had more than 80, 8-0 locations where the people gathered in to listen the story, listen to the strategy and then continue to discuss about that going forward. And that has been remarkably well received, and the organization is very much pumped up to start to deliver the new strategy going forward. Usually, it takes 3 months to get all the cascading done and get people to understand what the strategy is. Now we got that at the same time for the whole organization. Safety and sustainability. It's very important for us to be the clear frontrunner in both of these areas. Safety goes without saying, our industries, especially the customer part, are quite risky businesses. And safety is not only important for us from the perspective to keep our own employees safe when they do operate at the customer sites, but it's also to make sure that the customer staff is equally safe when we are around. So we take the role to work together with our customers to improve the safety for both of us going forward. And sustainability remains very important for us. You will hear more today about the energy-efficient solutions that we have. And that's why it's also one of the very clear factor why new talents joined Metso today. There is a clear willingness to be part of the Sustainable Minerals business in the future through working for Metso. Our KPIs are good or at least okay. So nothing to change there. But again, we want to go beyond. We want to be even better there. Starting with safety, going below 1 in the lost time injury frequency is very clear, clear target that we have. As I said, we have worked relentlessly with our net zero journey. So we are now 72% down from the baseline 2019. And then since years, 3 years at least, we have been having a rule that we don't approve any R&D project unless it has a sustainability impact. And 97.4 or 97.5 do have that in 2024 projects. And also in the CO2, we want to go beyond. The sustainability is so much more than just the CO2. In our industries, for example, the water plays quite an important role, either you don't have it at all or you need to circulate that or you need to somehow manage that it's in the right places. So sustainability is a lot of things. So is the ESG point of view, the social governance part because more and more customers are operating in very challenging places, and we need to be there with them because that is our strategy. So we need to take also this into account. And for that -- for this, we have created the Metso Plus offering, taking into account the sustainability and safety factors and also providing value to the customers through more production or more efficient production. And talking about that, digital and AI, you will hear more about that in the deep dive and also in the segment presentations. It plays a very big role in driving the value and efficiency. We are looking at this from the 2 angles. There is a customer value that can be created to the data and digital and AI. And there's also internal efficiency value, which actually at this moment in the 2025 October, it's actually even higher the internal part. So that's where we are putting focus for both. And we see a lot of areas of creating value and also creating self-help to ourselves through the digital and AI. And with all that packaging together, we have also then revised our financial target based on this strategy. We have annual sales growth target of beyond 7%. We have adjusted EBITA margin of beyond 18%. And we are doing this profitable growth so that our net debt to EBITDA is not going above EUR 1.5 million, and we continue to pay the dividends at least 50% of the earnings per share. These are our new financial targets. And also, we are a very attractive investment target, as you know. And just highlighting a few comments from there. We are in attractive growing end markets, both aggregate and especially mining at the moment is growing, and we have a strong existing position in both of these. We have set the target to be the industry benchmark. That means a lot of things from technology, R&D, new innovation to how we serve the customers, how we do the sustainability and safety. We have a very focused sharp strategy. We know where we are going to be spending our capital to create the value and create the growth that we are looking for. And as a result, we have the financial excellence. And for that, we have revised our financial targets. All that is required to have, as said, the strong company culture and very engaged Metsonites. And with this package, the shareholder value is coming together. So ladies and gentlemen, we go beyond. Now -- thank you. Now I will invite CFO, Pasi Kyckling to go a little bit more detail.

Right. Good day, everyone, and welcome also on my behalf. As part of my presentation, I will focus on financial excellence and discuss that through via the 4 targets that we have launched capital allocation priorities and how we envision to create shareholder value going forward. Let's get started with the first target, which is about sales growth. Metso hasn't had the sales growth target before. So it's a new thing for us. All our targets are for -- to be reached by year 2028, which is in the middle of our '26 to '30 strategy period. We have set ourselves a 7% growth target, and we envision that 5% to 6% of that is represented by organic growth and then 1% to 2% by bolt-on acquisitions, an assumption behind that is that both Aggregate and Mineral segments will face 4% market growth. When we look at Metso and Outotec history, you have in the chart quarterly -- 4-quarter rolling average data from the merger till end of second quarter this year. The company has been able to grow from the merger till roughly end of '23 and the last 6 quarters or so, we have seen stagnation and even some decline in sales. During this period, we have grown 5% CAGR and aftermarket has been growing more than that. Worth remembering that during this period, we had COVID and Metso, like many other companies also exited Russia. Russia represented roughly 10% of our business while we started the exit process. Our second target is the profitability target. So we have revised that up from previous 17% to 18%. And I will soon discuss the measures and the bridge how we plan to get there. Like you can see from the chart, we have had strong development since the merger till end of '23. While the company has been growing, we've been also able to realize the synergies and then deliver the synergy benefits from the merger. And then the development has been more stagnated after that, but we have shown great margin resilience by delivering roughly 16-plus percent margins despite the fact that the company has not been growing. Then many of you have had a question in your mind that, well, how shall we deliver that target? And we are approaching this with a waterfall with 3 main baskets. The first basket is about market growth. Our assumption is, like I said, that we are able to grow -- or the market is growing roughly 4% per year in both Aggregates and Minerals segment, providing us opportunities to lift the margin. Then as part of our strategy, we have made portfolio choices with aftermarket high in the agenda and via those choices that focus on aftermarket. And then also solutions where we have higher-than-average margin potential, we believe that we can lift our margins. And then finally, Metso has in the past period done great work with self-help, and we have a lot of further potential to do that. I will discuss SG&A more in the next slide, but a couple of other examples. Procurement, we have a lot of opportunities there, hard day-to-day procurement work, consolidating suppliers, taking the scale benefits that we can in the areas where we haven't done it yet. Going to best cost countries. We have a global footprint. We have done it in the past. We can do more going forward. A specific example area there is engineering. We are an engineering house. We also use a lot of engineering suppliers. We have roughly 0.5 million engineering hours in-house today in India. It has been rapidly growing recently, and then there is room to expand that further. Similarly, with our suppliers in that space, there is a significant cost benefit between the Western cost levels and then, for example, India, which we are leveraging. Logistics is another example. We have a lot of SKUs that we are moving every day. It's a relatively complex network, which we are managing. And then by simplifying, by going more directly from either our own manufacturing or suppliers to our end customers provides an opportunity instead of utilizing an inventory network in between. Aggregates business has done great work during the past period to standardize their offering. There is more content to be covered in that space. And then Minerals can do that as well. Again, a self-help opportunity that we have to drive the company forward. If we then talk specifically about SG&A, here, you have again data since the merger till today. Overall, we have been relatively successful on managing our absolute SG&A during the past period. Absolute level has not grown, but because the company has been shrinking a bit, the relative performance has deteriorated. And by bringing our SG&A efficiency in relation to sales back to past spectrum, we have an opportunity to improve. What it requires, it requires cost discipline. It requires dedicated and focused cost takeout actions. It requires also utilizing further the best cost country opportunities that we have within our own network, et cetera. But this is a big self-help opportunity for us. The third financial target is about our balance sheet healthiness. And earlier, our target has been to maintain investment-grade credit rating. We have twisted it now to concrete KPI and our target is to remain below 1.5x in net debt to EBITDA. Currently, we have a strong balance sheet. Investment-grade ratings, BBB flat from S&P and Baa2 from Moody's is evidence of that. We have the flexibility in our balance sheet to execute the strategy, execute the strategic actions that we have planned and still remain a healthy balance sheet company with leverage below our target. Let's then spend a small moment with liquidity. End of second quarter, we had healthy liquidity position, EUR 430 million plus. We have recently refinanced our revolving credit facility for the coming strategy period. And then when we look at our maturity profile going forward, it is balanced, and we have limited short-term maturities. Again, a good position to be to start a new strategy period. Our fourth and final financial target is about dividend. Target is unchanged. We drive to pay more than 50% of our EPS as dividends. We have done it in the history since the merger. In some years, the payout ratio has been relatively high. And I would like to also highlight that we've been able to pay continuously increasing dividend, obviously supported by the EPS growth that we have created during the period. Let's then talk about capital allocation. Our priorities going forward are the following. First, we want to pay dividend in line with the policy, 50% or more of EPS. Second, we want to fund organic growth opportunities. Third, we want to fund and we will fund bolt-on type acquisitions to strengthen the company. And then finally, if there is capital available, we are also open to consider additional distributions to our shareholders. Looking at the historical performance here between 2021 and first quarter this year, we have distributed roughly EUR 2 billion of capital. 55% of that has gone to dividend payments. 33% to organic growth and then 12% to M&A. I would like to also use this opportunity to highlight that our asset base is in good shape. We don't have any imminent capital needs in order to grow the company. We have been growing our service network constantly since the previous CMD roughly 2.5 years ago. We have opened or materially expanded 6 of our service centers. We continue to do that also going forward. Those are relatively low capital need efforts to have service center. What is more important there is the workforce to have skilled people close to our customers to be able to service them. We have also a significant aggregate factory project here in Finland in Tampere ongoing. That's a EUR 150 million project, which is on time and on budget. When it comes to organic growth, our focus will be based on our strategy choices, those areas where we already have leading market position to protect those, to strengthen those positions. And then the second category where we are not the market leader today, but we see attractive opportunities to gain that position and then allocate capital to reach that. When it comes to M&A, our main focus area there is the category where we don't currently have leading positions, but we see attractive opportunities and M&A may be a tool to make a step change and accelerate our position and development in that area. Then finally, R&D innovation spend continues to be significantly important for us going forward. It is important to maintain our technology leadership in the areas where we operate. During the past period, we have allocated increasing amount of funds to R&D. During first half, it was EUR 60-plus million, 2.6% of turnover, and you can expect us to continue to allocate 2%, 2.5% of sales to R&D going forward. Then cash flow generation. During the period since merger, we've been able to create solid cash flow from operations, roughly EUR 600 million per year. 2022 an exception. During this time, a significant working capital buildup has been happening and we recognize that. We've been also recently completing a EUR 200 million program to reduce our inventories. There is more work to be done with our working capital overall. We are working with all the components. Inventories, we still have slow-moving inventory, which we want to reduce. AR continuous work with our customers to find right solutions there. AP, the same thing with our suppliers. And then there is also important elements of prepayments, especially in our Minerals capital business where customers are prepaying us, and then we are prepaying to some of our suppliers while making contracts with them. And this is the package that we are optimizing, and you can expect us to improve the overall working capital efficiency, i.e., working capital over sales going forward. Ladies and gentlemen, let me then summarize with our engaged Metsonites, strong company culture, the strong market growth expectation in both of our segments, technology leadership, our service network close to customers and investments to develop the technology and service network going forward. And then with targeted capital allocation, our new financial targets, we believe that we can create attractive shareholder return, shareholder value also going forward. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Sami. Thank you, Pasi. And now we can take questions to the gentlemen. Before we start, let's try and keep the questions at this time on a group level because we will be deep diving into segments and businesses in a moment. [Operator Instructions] There are 2 mics in the room. So raise your hand. When you get the mic, please introduce yourself and then go ahead with the question. And Thomas Skogman seems to be the first one here.

Yes. This is Thomas Skogman from DNB Carnegie. Can you give some kind of indication how large share of your sales is coming from these kind of 3 categories that you mentioned, where you have a market-leading position and where -- and the other ones where you want to invest and the third group where you are focusing on profitability?

Obviously, the already position where we are strong, that is a high portion and that is then going to be growing and delivering in the future as well the highest share. Currently, as per today, the second basket is maybe not the highest, but then during the strategy period and looking at the growth numbers, so they will be -- they -- that basket will definitely be delivering more than 7% annual growth. That's where the growth is coming heavily. And then as I said, the improved profitability has a significant role today and the growth is then maybe a little bit limited for the first few years and then more accelerated there. So more in the first and third and then less in the middle box at the start of the strategy period.

Okay. And another question, I think it's -- you have put yourself a bit in the corner when you have only 3 years to achieve the targets. We have seen most other companies, at least here in Finland [ Engineering ] have 5-year period. So is this a sign that you are very confident on that the sales funnel will turn into real orders soon as well?

We are a very ambitious company. We -- of course, the target of setting 3 year, we didn't want that to be too far away. So in that sense, I have also seen what the other companies have been doing. But we also wanted to have a certain speed and velocity in things that we start to do now. Psychologically, if you have 5 years' time, so you can start slowly and then ramp up a little bit closer to the 5-year ending. So this is also keeping the whole organization and company in a good move from the day 1.

Next in the back.

Vlad Sergievskii from Barclays. I have questions on growth and on margins. If I can start with growth. Obviously, you are targeting 5% to 6% organic. That's more or less average through the cycle growth for mining equipment historically. Does it assume that your assumption is conservative in terms of the growth for the market? Because then the setup would be that we have seen 2 years of slower growth in mining equipment, you can say 2 years of a downturn. We have obviously very favorable commodity prices across your key commodities, particularly gold. Doesn't it suggest that we will be in the up cycle during this strategy period over the next 3 years?

Yes. I think for this 5-year period, the expectation is clearly that there will be a positive cycle when it comes to the mining equipment. Our target is sales growth. So obviously, that requires that the orders should be coming in. And for that, there is still in the world, as we have been communicating, what we see is a certain amount of hesitation. It's not as bad as it was 2 years ago. So there's a change in that. But obviously, we have not yet seen any kind of boom of orders either. But for your question, so yes, we do see that during the 5-year period, there will be a positive cycle for the mining equipment, especially.

That's great. And then the question on the margin. Can you maybe compare what has changed versus prior target of 17-plus through the cycle versus current target of 18-plus in 2028, which perhaps will be closer to the upcycle than not? What are the building blocks from '17 to '18? And maybe if you can split it by division, which division contributed more to this margin uplift?

Yes. Maybe I can take that. And if I start from the segment angle, so we have set a 20% target for Minerals and then 17% target to Aggregates. And if you compare that to past performance, so there is more improvement need in Minerals and improvement potential there, whereas aggregates is currently traveling closer to that 17% target. So if you do that comparison, we expect a bit more contribution from Minerals.

Before the next one, I'll take one from online, and this is from Klas Bergelind. He is a bit surprised when it comes to market growth that we are saying that both Minerals and Aggregates should grow at the same rate of 4%. So he says that shouldn't Mining or Minerals grow faster, and that also comes to the kind of actual 7% growth target for the business.

Yes, I can take that as well. So we've been looking at our intel and concluded on this 4% and 4% for both segments, making it also transparent to everyone here what our assumption has been. And then if we deviate from that, then obviously, there is more or less opportunities for us. But we felt that 4% growth target for both segments at this point of time was a good balanced market growth assumption. And again, your crystal ball is as good as mine. So let's see what happens during this 3-year period.

Then the next one, Christian.

Christian Hinderaker from Goldman. I want to start on the working capital, if I can. You had EUR 1.8 billion of inventory in Q2. That's an improvement from EUR 1.98 billion last year, but still 38% of revenues. As we think about your 2 primary goals, achieving customer excellence and a higher aftermarket share, should we expect your inventory management to be better or for that inventory number to go higher? And then I'll come to the second one.

Maybe I can take the inventory question. So indeed, we've been working with this hard within the company during the past 12 months or so to deliver that EUR 200 million order of magnitude reduction. And we are not done by that. I think if you look at the history, we invested a lot in working capital exactly for customer service reasons. We've been successful with that and now we are optimizing. When I look at the inventory turns, not only the headline number, but more in detail, there is still a chunk which is turning with far too low turnover days, and then that's our focus. And then in the flip side, there are also a few areas where we are investing more to make sure that we can service our customers in a good way. But on a net basis, like I said, we see an opportunity and need to improve further when it comes to overall working capital and also specifically inventory, which is the biggest component within working capital.

But your assumption was right to be able to do best-in-class customer service, especially in the aftermarket, you need to be able to also serve from the inventory. So then the question is that how do we make sure that we are the smartest, also how to manage the inventories. And for that, the data, AI and other tools that we start to have in place is going to be helping a lot.

Can I squeeze the second one in? The 4% growth rate for the market, is that volume or it includes price?

Yes, that includes also price components.

Thank you. I have another one from online. Nick Houstan asks, how do you maintain the internal discipline to focus only on the most profitable areas given the kind of breadth of the product portfolio?

Yes. Excellent question. And for that reason exactly, as I told, we have involved already in the building phase, 150 Metso employees for the work. And that means that throughout the last 6 months, it's been very clear many of these are the business leaders for the different businesses and solutions. And that's how. The other way to do that is that we have a very clear strategy that is understood by the whole organization. And for that reason, the last week was very important that we started it with the global launch and continued this week then already with the segment calls and that will continue for the rest of the October. And then it's our job to keep that as a management so that the focus is there, and we have a very rigid measurement system for the execution of this strategy as well ongoing, and that's the way how we ensure.

That's another one from Nick. Does the -- we go Beyond strategy include potential divestments? And if so, what is the criteria?

Yes, it does. And actually, we kind of like took a head start already. So 1 month ago, we have announced one divestment, which is ongoing here in Finland from the consumables business area. And those were the result of the work that we did, which ones are the core, which ones are something that will benefit for Metso's shareholders going further. And when we saw that something is off or far away from the core or aftermarket intensity, then we look for the alternatives for those ones and divestments can still be ongoing when we move forward with these solutions going forward.

Just one additional comment on the previous question regarding discipline on capital allocation, et cetera. It's indeed about processes, like Sami said, making sure that we have performance management processes, we have capital allocation processes, et cetera, which we do. And then the second thing I want to highlight is from a people point of view. Maybe many in the room think that it's cool to be in the areas where we grow, et cetera, which it may be. But I argue that the biggest learning opportunities are in the third box where you need to really find ways to improve your current business. and it's also good for people. And some of our Metsonites will have great learning opportunities while working with such tests.

Thank you. Next one, Michael?

My name is Michael, and I work at Morgan Stanley. I just have one on the growth that you see in mining. If you could give us maybe some color on what we should expect in terms of equipment versus aftermarket split. And then in terms of brownfield versus greenfield. If you expect a greenfield uptick or not, that would be really helpful.

Yes. After the break, you will hear even more details from this one. But obviously, when we look at the mining area, there are a few commodities that jump out at the moment. Gold is soon hitting the $4,000. So clear, the investments are coming from there at the moment. Copper has been already some time and will be the long-term growth driver, meaning the new mines and expansions will be happening, and that's, of course, very good position for Metso. Then the split between the capital and aftermarket, we have very clear, as you have heard, it's part of the company strategy, the focus for the aftermarket and the growth of aftermarket will and needs to happen quarter after quarter and year after year. That's how the mathematics comes together as well then when it comes to the financial performance.

Will?

It's Will Mackie from Kepler Cheuvreux. Two questions, first of all. Can we go back to your growth strategy within solutions? And can you throw a little more color, please, on the scope of the categories where you see opportunity to expand towards your #1 market position in terms of the level of revenue that may represent or the business categories within either Minerals or Aggregates? And the second question is more of an accounting one. relating to working capital. Just to come back to a question about the H1, we saw a big jump in contract assets and liabilities versus the end of the year and prior year. It was a real change with regard to the shift in revenue growth. Maybe you can describe whether that's a business model change or whether that was a real shift in the mix of business you were doing that was driving it? And how should we think it will develop?

You can take the second one. I can just -- there's more information coming after break for the segments. But let's say that the one where Metso is #1 is crushing. That's clear for both aggregate and minerals. So that's the area to what we are the world #1, and we want to make the gap even wider. And then in the growth category, for example, pumps, it's something that we are not #1. There is one that is very dominant in the marketplace, and we want to claim the very strong #2 position as fast as possible and other interesting -- but it's a good example of those high-margin attractive areas that we want to go. And then in the third one, there are some like hydrometallurgy, which is more suffering at the moment from the low volume, but still not in line with the profitability, for example.

And then when it comes to the accounting question, there is no business model change as such. That's just a representation of what has happened with our project accounting during that period. And I can check more in detail and maybe we can have a discussion during the break, but there is no change in sort of fundamental business models and those 2 balance sheet lines are representation of how the POC accounting moves forward with different primary mineral capital projects that we are executing.

We still have time to take. Anders.

Sure. Yes, I was also hoping to get some more examples of the growth areas. But you mentioned pumps. And we've seen quite a few software deals from competitors lately. So I was just wondering a bit on your strategy on the M&A side in terms of which areas could benefit from having a higher software content, and could you do deals there?

Yes. This is -- you will get some flavor of that in the deep dive. So stay tuned for that one. Software does serve the growth and profitability ambitions. But we take that kind of approach that it's the customer value created also -- supported by software, not software alone. And the same applies to our own work that we see that we can create a lot of value of our own efficiency through the data and the softwares, but then the actual growth of the business is something that we do today, but we just will do it much better.

Maybe as a follow-up as well, you mentioned a few areas where you wanted to increase your market share on the -- could you maybe give a few examples of that? Would that be mainly spare parts, wear parts, field services or different products?

When we talk about now here, we talk about the solutions and solution, maybe this was something that I didn't open up in the beginning. Solution is, for example, let's take screening as a solution. It means the screening equipment, screening media, which is the consumables and then screening spare parts and the service. So everything that we do for that technology. This is the approach that we have now looked. So when we say that we want to grow in those solutions that have high aftermarket intensity and high margin potential. Screening, by the way, is a good example. That belongs to the second category. So that means that there is a large amount of aftermarket for one equipment when it's installed. And those -- we want to sell more screens to be able to harvest the aftermarket later on.

All right. Thanks so much. We have run out of time of this segment. There are more questions in the room and in the chat. We can come back to those later in the event. Now we go for a break, and we come back with the segment presentations 20 past the hour. See you then. [Break]

Welcome back from the break. And like I said, we will be diving into our business segments. We will start with aggregates and these 2 gentlemen will really crush it. So welcome, Markku Simula and Saso Kitanoski.

Welcome, everybody. I'm really excited to see such an audience. And also I have experienced the questions that may come out, deep dive into the knowledge of Aggregates segment. With me is also Markku.

Welcome, and I'm truly excited about our Go Beyond strategy. So welcome to listen to us. Okay. So #1 in aggregates. And I'm pleased to say that we are actually #1 in aggregates already. So it's not a target that we would be starting to reach, but it's something that we want to go beyond. So we are actually #1 in North America. We are #1 in Europe. We are #1 in South America. We are #1 in Middle East and India. We are #1 in China. We are #1 also in Africa. Then kind of Asia Pacific happens to be one area where we are not quite #1. But if you look at the size of the slices, we are not that far away from that either in Asia Pacific. And to my pleasure, I can actually say also that we've been gaining our market share, both in China as well as India, which kind of traditionally has not been quite the strongest the biggest market for us ourselves. So -- and of course, our stronghold or the core of the business has been in Europe and North America. And there, we have been very strong in the past and continue to be strong also in the future. Then if we look at our customers and customer industry trends, first of all, our customers are facing increasing cost pressures. And that, of course, defines what kind of decisions they are making. They are looking for reducing operational costs. They are looking for expanding the life of our equipment or the equipment they are using, and they are looking to -- for lower total cost of ownership solutions from the suppliers. And that's, of course, something that those are things that we want to supply to our customers. Then for their processes, they are looking for productivity, efficiency. Know-how, digital channels and digital solutions are something that we are providing for our customers in order to be more productive, more efficient. And we want to boost their efficiency, minimizing downtime, reducing maintenance cost of our customers. And then recycling, it's a growing trend. So recycling of the aggregate material, but not only the aggregate material, also other type of materials related to construction. And what we have been actually entering into is what we call infra recycling, and we have actually made even one acquisition late last year related to infra recycling. But with our Metso Plus offering, we support our customers to achieve their sustainability goals and then, of course, enable the effective use of -- reuse of the materials. And then when looking at the markets, we were already referring earlier that the market growth is there. How I'm looking at the aggregates market right now is actually that if you take a long-term view, there are kind of high cycles and low cycles in aggregates market. And I would say that right now, we are actually on a lower cycle. And some of that is very much related to the inventory discussion that was had earlier. So what happened after COVID and how the inventories were developing in our customer side as well as our distributors as well as our own inventories. But what we are looking at is something like 3% to 4% growth for the kind of the natural aggregates. Then for the aggregates and infrastructure recycling, we are actually looking at higher growth rates, something like 5% to 7% growth rates. And there, where -- how we are looking at that market is that the natural disasters are getting bigger and bigger and the damage that they are causing is getting bigger and bigger. As well as recently, unfortunately, there has been man-made disasters and man-made conflicts that are causing a lot of needs for fixing the infrastructure as well. And what we are really targeting are those type of helping those, let's say, areas that are suffering from those natural as well as man-made disasters in order to rebuild the infrastructure in there. And that we do see as a little bit faster-growing market. However, I also would like to point out that, like I said, right now, we are at a low point on market. So there is expected also some bounce back of the market going forward. When does that happen that we don't know yet, but surely, we are expecting that to happen. And obviously, the geopolitical situation has a lot to do with that bounce back timing.

Thank you, Markku. Well, as previously presented by Sami, we also have a # 1 aggregates strategy, one page, which sums up the whole strategy in one. We would go regional, be closer to the customers. And when we say we go regional, it's not only through our distribution of direct sales and service operations. It also means our footprint goes more regional by that derisking the geopolitical factors for our customers. Also, we would focus on captivity in the aftermarket, something that has a trend already started, and we have been successful in that. We will show more details in the next slides, but that will be in the focused area in the aggregates segment as well. We have classified our focus areas in a few groups. On the left-hand side is the #1 in quarries and contractors. They represent a large basket of our business. They have different dynamics, and they have different trends in where they are going today. However, the aftermarket crosses all the aggregates segment operations, and that will be the emphasis across. On the right-hand side is the new developing faster-growing portion of our business, which is, as Markku rightfully said, in the aggregates recycling, which is basically generating new materials out of previously waste, which was called demolition waste. Even our customers are calling it demolition material. They have changed their view on it, and we have the technologies, and we are developing technologies for it to capture that one. The other one is the infra recycling, where we can see the potential where we have made the first steps actually recently, and we can see the growth there. The enablers valid for everything we touch and everything we do, our people, they have the customer-centric growth culture. We have solid evidence of that. We can see that we are reaching to the customers in levels that we have not seen before, but I'm pretty sure the customers have not seen before. Of course, segment focus will bring the end-to-end visibility of our customers are looking at us, but also more importantly, how we understand the values required for the market. And then, of course, we need to reply to those. Technology and Digital leadership. We are -- how long. We are 200 years maybe in this business. crushing in aggregates, crushing and screening in aggregates, crushing and screening in minerals, you name it. We are by far the powerhouse when it comes to this business. But then there are trends that are speeding up the development. Digital is one of them. I'm pretty sure our dear colleague later will open up more what we do in the aggregate segment in the digital. But I can proudly say that at this moment, we have already a technical capability to deliver an experience to the customer that all of us who drive modern cars experience with our cars as well. That's where we are, and that's where we are continuing. If we go to the next slide, we would like to open a bit more in these focus areas that we've mentioned on the previous page. On the top line, you see the aftermarket share in the whole revenue of the aggregate segment. It's 31%. Comparable to the minerals, that's lower, clearly. But we also need to say that aggregates dynamics are different compared to minerals. Normally, crushers operate on a lower hours. They have more mobility in the contractors range. So there is a different size of aftermarket in the aggregates segment itself. On the verticals, you would see the quarries. Quarries are predominantly fixed stationary units, which operate longer period in one place and deliver a wider range of products to the same market. They can be also portable, but they are not really changing the location. They are more operating in the same pit or in the same quarry. They represent 51% of our revenue stream in Aggregates segment. These are also the closest to our minerals activities, but very different as well. Where we're going to focus here? What we have already good track record is delivering new products, new products that make a serious difference in how this running operations are really going forward. We have digital enhancement performance programs. You will hear also again later about them, which do bring higher productivity, but also provide flexibility to the customer in these operations. Last but not least, we have a very long track record of developing what we call super materials, different lines of different materials, providing higher lifetime but also targeted production for over a longer period of time for our customers. We will show a few examples in the next page. The middle one is the contractors focus area. It's 43% of our revenue. in the aggregate segment. This is predominantly customers which use truck-mounted crushers, wheel-mounted crushers, portable units. They frequently change the location. They have a bit unpredictable production ahead of them because they don't know what they will produce in 3 months or 6 months, et cetera, et cetera. So there are different value aspects what we need to present to that segment. Here, availability is a key essential, not only in the aftermarket also for the capital. That's why the distribution network that we have been investing very heavily in the previous 5 years, 10 years goes a long way here, delivers a real value for the customers. The mobile equipment innovations are the next one. They are the fastest moving. This is also the customer that depends a lot on the machine itself. So whatever innovation goes into the mobile range has a direct impact into what we do in the contractor segment. on the maintenance, but also digital, we are developing models which are going after predictive maintenance. As I said, here, maintenance plays a key role. It's something that can avoid the risk of not delivering that week to your customer, and that is how this segment normally thinks. And that's why we have that solution in progress. The last one, 6% of our revenue is actually the newcomer, that's the aggregates recycling and the infra recycling. Here, we are in a stage where we are productizing the offering. We are making it affordable for a wider range of customers. We are making it reachable to a wider range. And of course, we have to close the range of portfolio to be modern and also use the enablers that Metso has in hand. If we go to the next slide, I would like to invite my colleague to explain what we have done better.

Well, we start looking at the world from a region point of view and from regionality point of view and -- or not starting only, but we are continuing on the journey. And here, what you can see now is our equipment regional presence today. So North America, we are selling 35% of our sales in North America and 50% of the equipment sold in North America is supplied from our local factories in North America. Similarly, in Europe, 30% of sales and 94% of equipment is supplied from local regional factories in Europe. South America, 7% of sales and 89% supplied from local factories. China, 9% of sales, 96% -- practically everything is supplied from local factories in China, so China for China basically. And India, 8% of sales and all of it, 100% is supplied from our local factories in India. And of course, that gives us competitiveness. And by the way, rest of the world, 11% of the sales, and we don't have -- in other locations, we don't have our factories. So everything is exported from other factories. But this is actually one of the core reasons why we are competitive in different parts of the world. However, we have to go further. It's not only being present in locally, but what we are also looking at that what should be our product offering for the local market. And today, we tend to have too many products that are globally the same products all over the place for all countries. But reality is that the competitive situation in China and India is actually different than it is in Europe or North America. So we have to be also be able to regionalize a lot more our offering towards the local needs from a technical point of view, but also from cost competitiveness point of view. Then on the right side of the picture, you can see also that one sample or not a sample, but you can see our brands, how we are approaching our customers. So we do recognize that our customers have many different type of needs, different needs for different customers. And what we want to do is to supply different value propositions to different customer needs. And for that reason, we have been building our different approaches, different offerings for different customer needs. Some customers are even running 24/7. It's not too many in aggregates world that are running 24/7. But if you are running 24/7 or you are really crushing really hard rock, then you have to be truly reliable and solid equipment for that. But then on the other hand, we have customers that are running our mobile screens or mobile crushers like 15, 20, 30 hours a week. And then, of course, you would rather try to optimize the cost of the equipment rather than the long lifetime of the equipment in that. So we have different value propositions for our customers. And that we are implementing through our brand offering. Then I have one deep dive here, which is, I would say that's the core of the core of our aggregates business, and it is crushing. Crushing brings us most of our business. It actually brings us 75% of our aggregate sales, and it brings us even bigger share of our profitability. We are truly a technology leader. in crushing. And we believe that we are 3x the closest competitor in terms of the actual crushers, manufacturing the actual crushers. So we are truly, truly a big boy in this area, in the crushing area. And it's really, really important part of our money. So thinking of the buckets that Sami was showing in the presentation, this is clearly in the kind of core bucket of that list. Now how do we create our competitiveness in this area also for the future? Innovations are really, really important. And of course, when we are really significantly bigger than others, we have the muscle to make innovations in this area. And we have to also remember that when we are introducing new crushers, that actually creates also opportunities and secures the captivity of our aftermarket solutions. So we are -- we have been recently investing a lot of money in order to kind of renew our offering in the crushing in order to improve the captivity. That, of course, pays back in long run. It doesn't pay back the next year. It pays back in a much longer run. Then harvesting the rewards of regional investments. So we have had major investments in India for new factories, major investments also in China for new factories, although the investment size has not been significant in China because we have chosen a low-risk way of investing. So we actually go for rental premises and kind of reduce our risk there. Then we have had acquisitions in U.S. And we are making -- currently, like mentioned, we are making a big investment in crusher factory here in Finland. Multi-brand synergies, a significant contributor to our profitability improvement in the last years has actually been our multi-brand synergies. And we still see that there is a lot to gain on the multi-brand synergies also going forward. So we have not exhausted all the multi-brand synergies at this moment. Digital, we have aggregates digital presentation later today, but that's really, really important for our development. And our customers also see the excitement -- I can see the excitement on many of our customers on the digital capabilities that they will have. And then aftermarket intensity, really crushing is the most aftermarket-intensive area of our business. So a really big portion of our aftermarket is actually coming from crushing business as well. And when I, by the way, say 75% of aggregate sales, that includes both aftermarket as well as the capital of the aggregate. So really both areas.

I think in the next slide, we're going to open up a bit the aftermarket journey we have taken way earlier and what we're going to change what we're going to do different going forward in the future. Maybe we start with where we are. On the left-hand side in the graph, you can see that the machines that have remote connectivity and we see the operating hours, they have been actually operating 20% lower number of hours per year compared to 2021. This shows you that actually we are not in the top cycle when it comes to aggregate segment. So 20% less hours means 20% less production, 20% less aftermarket. But our results shows that we have not dropped the aftermarket share, neither the volume in the aggregate segment, meaning that actually, even with a low market situation, we have been growing the market share from our aftermarket in the aggregate segment. Why we do it and why we are so confident about it? Number one, it's a scalable model. Whenever the market goes up, we have the captivity. We know how to do it. We have a distribution network, direct sales network. We have the presence in the market, and we have the value proposition to the customer. Scalable model that can capture the market whenever it starts. Availability and customer satisfaction are coming from multiple sources in our business. But maybe from the new things that are -- where we are moving towards is the regional network and operational presence. As Markku has shown you the slide before, that was the slide for equipment. We have multiple other operations, which are way closer to the customers. And why they are important? Because they deliver the customer service levels to the customers depending on the value proposition that they are looking for. The digital-enabled customer experience is something that is the new thing. It's the modern way to do this business. It goes in multiple channels. We have the technical capability to already do it, but I'm sure it will take a few years before actually the customers start accepting that as a new way to operate. Maybe we are surprised with the speed. We will see. But generally, that is the trend where it goes, and we can probably say we have the technical capability and we're already going in that journey. What it will bring? It will bring ease of business. Customers would experience the same thing that they experience in their daily life, potentially savings for the customer, meaning that they could avoid multiple technical discussions and whatnot around the maintenance, but also will enable Metso to deliver a better customer experience and also reduce costs and et cetera, when we use those data and we use those information. Captivity was mentioned many times. We have that embedded in our model, starting from design of, let's say, crusher all the way to the delivery on an inventory level or service levels that we are looking at. Here, implementation of the multi-brand was started from the aspect of the equipment because there, the differentiation in the values has been very obvious. Now we are moving with that type of approach also closer to the customer with the aftermarket, which means, yes, we have propositions for different value streams in the customers because they ask for different things as well. The last vertical is actually expanding market that is in the third-party crushers. It's no secret that many of the sites do have other than Metso crushers, but we are the present one. We are maintaining them. And now we are creating -- we have already a large offering, but we are creating the rest of the offering to be able to capture that market in the aftermarket and bring it closer to Metso. This is fueled by what we call super materials development, which we already have in hand. It has been already predominantly worked in the crusher wears, meaning in the wear side of the business. And we know and we can see that it has the right trend. It has the right offering for the customers. On the next slide, I would like then to open up more about the quarries, which represent, as you know, 51% of the revenue stream in aggregates segment, and they carry 44% of our aftermarket share within the quarries area. The horizontal green bar shows you the trends that we experience on the customers. From the pressure of how much does a license to operate cost, but also is it available, how close you are to the cities, et cetera, we see the trend of larger and bigger quarries continuing. China has went huge quarries in the range of minerals, 70 million, 80 million tonnes per annum. Europe is following. We see the Middle East joining the club, et cetera. There is a general trend of having larger, bigger capacity quarries in the market. When you produce that much of material, production flexibility is essential. When we produce in minerals, we produce gold or copper. Here, we are talking about 5, 10, 15 different products. Now the trick is in these 5 to 10 products, not all carry the same value at the same price. Actually, some of them are produced so much on the account of the other. So the real value comes from maybe 3 out of the 10 products on the customers' production, and those are where we need to maximize the production. That's the solution which really pays the bill for the customers. Then finally, there is scarcity of people, there is scarcity in the industry in general. So there is a pressure to our customers to have an easy, safe operations, which is then focused on cost per tonne performance. That is where the trend goes in the quarries business. So we built on absolutely unmatched experience in the crushing and screening circuit. Needless to say, being 3x bigger in the crushing business does give you that platform, does give you that base. But then we have screening also in the sentence. After the crushing, screening is the second largest revenue stream. It's also the most important one because whatever you crush, you need to sort out and final product gets outside the screen or after the screen. So there is this value stream for the customer, which is essentially super important. So on the left-hand side on the bottom box, you would see that we have built now and we are still continuing to invest in a future matching screens portfolio, which touches both the top end of larger capacity screens, but also it touches the ultrafine screening. Ultrafine screening is where we also create additional value for the same product of the customer. But also potentially, we avoid water usage inside the quarry itself. These screens are built on a modular design. What that means that if there is a third-party screen instead of a Metso screen, we can simply replace that screen with components of Metso and get it moving with a higher efficiency than the existing one and still fit in the same volume space, fit in the same footprint, which is making the transaction change from anybody to Metso service way smoother, way easier. We have already a wide offering of screening media. What we have now introduced recently, and we continue with that is new materials into the screening media. And here, one could say, okay, well, it's about lifetime. No, it's also about flexibility because when you have a flexible screen media, the clocking, the stopping of passing of material is prevented. And that is something that we are really mastering today with multiple materials. The middle box is the aftermarket focus on optimizing operations. This is where the customers are having difficulties, but the answers are actually in our house. We have the full circuit experience and the expertise. If we take an example on the crusher wears, in the modern world, you can buy a scanner already on your phone, you can copy the profile and you can say, okay, I can produce this with the same geometry, potentially also you can reengineer the material which was used. But none of that is valid because none of that brings you the knowledge, why is it like that? And when do you need to stop using it. And this is because our profiling and our offering, which is also productized and already on the market, does bring 2 main points. It increases the lifetime and second one does keep the profile to produce the maximum product value that the customer is asking for. That expertise is very rare in this business. The last one is, again, the digitally enablement. Here, we are more talking about predictive maintenance to try to avoid the stops. And when we say predictive maintenance, it's not just about stops. We talked about the screen media. If the screen media is broken, then the customer gets waste, meaning material that is blended between different products. That is not good. That is actually the highest expense for our customers. So we have solutions that can observe that and also on time, predict the next maintenance requirements so that, that doesn't happen. The last box on the right-hand side on the bottom speaks about innovation powerhouse. Having the size, having the knowledge and expertise puts us in that position. We have been heavily investing in new products. We have seen a lot of new products to market. I think there is no -- we will not stop. We will just increase the speed forward. One example I have taken here is the third generation of what we call MX. MX stands for multiple material blends for the crusher wears. Let me repeat myself, third generation. On the first one, we made a lot of mistakes we learned from. The second one was better. The third one is fantastic. And every step goes further and further into the lifetime, but also brings this other value. Needless to say, the small secret, we will call them super MX Crusher wears because they deliver super performance. The third-party crusher, spares and wears, there is a lot of [indiscernible] that can say, okay, we can deliver for Metso, we can deliver for this and that, fine. What's the value? It can be only price, cheaper price. But do they really deliver what the customer wants, what the customer is targeting? That can come only from expertise. We have been now building for a very long period of time that expertise also for third-party suppliers, and we have been already seeing the first experience. Crusher wears is already there. We are now moving very fast into the spares business, and I think we can deliver a fantastic experience for our customers in that range. Last but not least, here, we are talking about enhancement of production with digital. You will see a very good graph by Jaakko later, but what does this mean? We have a system in the behind, which is not asking for the operator to do anything. It does itself, but increases capacity. And again, matched with the preventive maintenance, this gives a huge jump for the customer forward. This is what we want to do in the quarry segment potentially very soon.

Good. And then we jump a little bit on R&D. And R&D is a big focus area for us. And you can see that since 2016, '17, we have been increasing our R&D spending every year. Even throughout the COVID years, we were increasing our R&D spending. So -- and then I guess, important to remember is that the R&D spending doesn't create the kind of result -- sales result immediately on the next year. There is always a kind of lag before the customers start to adopt the new products. So in a way, I mean, this trend of R&D expenditure is actually creating potential sales value for the coming years. That's basically the point here. Then on the -- where are we actually -- what are we developing? Electrical hybrid range of our mobile equipment. Then crushers, as an example, HP crushers where our -- which is our highest selling product. We have actually renewed that crusher range just recently. Our some sizes are still ongoing, but that increases the captivity of our highest range -- highest selling crusher range. Super materials, as Saso was already explaining, and then digital and automation and as well as recycling are focus areas for our R&D spending. Then looking at our aggregates journey on improving the profitability from first half of this year, our profitability has been 15%. Our peak profitability was a little bit more than 17%. I think '23, it was 17.2%. And now we are setting that our target will be more than 17%. Now how to get there? Market growth will help us that bounce back in the market will help us. We have our growth actions, and we have -- generally, our growth actions deliver higher profitability than our kind of current business. And then we have self-help opportunities where I believe the most important ones would be pricing, pricing. I think we have -- current market situation is not allowing us to have the best, most effective pricing policies in place. Then the second one is our supply chain. I think we have a lot of things that we can still improve in our supply chain, and we have ongoing investments or very recent investments in our supply chain, as I explained earlier. And then our multi-brand synergies, we have definitely not exhausted all of our multi-brand synergies yet. So we have still opportunities in there. And then there is even a component coming from our digital developments that we believe that we have -- we can actually improve our cost structures with our digital tools that we are developing. So altogether, I'm actually very confident that with this 2028 target, more than 17% is a totally reachable target. And then Metso, #1, and we are looking for some growth as well. And I guess we have stated that it's 7%. And I can say that we are committed to make that 7% growth annually going forward.

And then, of course, 17% and beyond. That is the 2028. That's how we can foresee the Aggregates segment performing.

Thank you, gentlemen, for warming up with the questions. I'll take a couple from the chat. There's been a few which discuss kind of aftermarket share of aggregates revenue. So do you have a target in mind or such a level that you would wish aftermarket would go, thanks to your focus on it going forward?

Well, we will do everything possible to maximize it and boost it, but it's a cyclical business. So it depends a lot on how the year would look like if the business goes forward, both go forward, both capital and aftermarket. But definitely, the attention will be to maximize it.

I mean I guess we are more focused on the euro growth rather than the share growth. All right. And one more quickly from Ed Hussey. Do the margins differ in natural aggregates and infrastructure recycling part of the business?

In the -- I would say that if you look at our different parts of our business, like I said, the crushing is the most important part or most money-generating part of our business. And where the crushing is kind of most -- where the most part of crushing is, is actually quarry business. So most profitable business for us is our quarry business in that sense.

All right. Then let's take Antti first. Mics coming from left and right. There we go.

Antti Kansanen, SEB. Two questions. I'll start with pricing, which you mentioned is a big part of the self-help component. So could you provide a little bit more color on what are the improvements on pricing that you see versus what the situation is in today?

I would say that if we go back a few years, the pricing situation was just unbelievable that there was shortage of just about everything in the world. So then pricing capability was very high for ourselves as well as our competitors. Within the last couple of years, the market has been relatively tough. Competition has been relatively tough, and it has been not optimal for pricing position in the last couple of years. Now we are expecting that market will be turning, and we are expecting some uplift of the market, and that will enable us to be more active on the pricing activities as well. So I think that's the color that I would give there.

I think it's also the value selling. I think we are now with a multi-brand approach, we identified what values do really take for which customer levels. And from an aftermarket perspective, we have a lot of new things that are new to the market as well. So that pricing, let's say, power, if I may call it, when you have something innovative, something new does come in place now.

Makes sense. Then the second question is on the footprint in North America. I mean, I think if I remember correctly, it had 50% share of locally produced. And I guess your main site is in Canada, not in the U.S. where I would assume that the majority of the sales. So what is -- looking forward, what are your plans of your, let's say, production supply chain footprint in North America, aggregates equipment, especially?

If you look at the -- if you look at first our current sales in North America or, let's say, U.S., like you said, biggest factor is actually in Canada. However, we are still looking at North America as a single market from the point of view that the equipment that we are manufacturing in Canada are actually tariff -- mostly -- almost all of it is tariff-free going to U.S. So in a sense, we don't see tariffs so whether we are manufacturing in U.S. or in Canada. So in that sense, it's kind of a similar. Then looking forward for the future, I mean, currently, I would say that right now, it's way too early to make any kind of investment decisions for the U.S. market. But I guess, long term, who knows what will happen.

Maybe to add on the equipment, but also maybe still on the equipment, the screens, we already established an assembly shop inside U.S., which means we have already moved into the North American market with equipment assemblies and we call them ATPS, assembly, test, painting shops, which do answer also another thing. The answer to the regional technical requirements way better than previously. And that makes a difference.

And additionally, we have -- last year, we acquired 2 businesses, both having a factory in U.S., then we have an older factory in the U.S., and then we have the big factory in Canada. So we actually have relatively big footprint already in U.S. as well.

A couple of quick ones from the chat from Chitrita Sinha. What are the M&A priorities in aggregates?

Well, we have started the journey with the latest announcement in the screens portion. We have acquired a company in China, which is -- I don't know, China has -- who knows how many producers of screens by a number, but it's definitely the top 5. And what we have done actually, it's not only that we have our entrance into the Chinese market, which is in aggregate segment, the largest in the world, we also got technologies, which expand our portfolio to the super large quarries and ultrafine screens with it. So from an aftermarket perspective, one of the focus areas and growth areas will be actually to the screens as they sit in the middle box of reaching the #1 position also in the mineral side. They come also with additional product range, which is universal for any producer of the screens that has a screen media and they come also with a pretty good high margins, which with the service network, with the presence we have, with the distribution we have do provide us a super good platform to move forward. So that will be a typical case of how we would go forward in the screen side. I think for the rest of the aftermarket offering, we have our plans. They are very regionalized because this is actually a very regional market. And many of the targets or I don't know how to name them right, but let's say, potential target is maybe the right word, would need to fit in both the technological advancement, but also to a regional supply or regional specifications to the specific ones. Those 2 priorities more on the aftermarket and screens side, I would say. And maybe to add to that, we have basically two big areas where we think that we can make money in the future. One being anything that has a high content on aftermarket. And then another one is that anything where we have -- where we can see a significant multi-brand synergy opportunity. So those would be our kind of main areas.

Quick one. Saso, how much the third-party equipment do you service in Aggregates aftermarket at the moment?

That's a difficult question to answer because what is third-party equipment is also questionable. Being 200 years in this business, we have created maybe many of it in the past. We call them classics and some others call them differently. But maybe I don't know the number on spot globally. But I can say, for example, in Europe, around 25% of our revenue comes from third-party crushers already.

All right. Sorry, we have used our time reserved for Aggregates at this stage. We can come back to the questions later because -- thank you, Saso and Markku. We need to move on. And next, we will discuss Minerals segment. And ladies and gentlemen, this next duo is as strong as the previous one, I would say. So here, they come, Piia Karhu and Heikki Metsala.

Good afternoon. My name is Heikki Metsala. I'm truly delighted to have this golden opportunity to share you our Mineral strategy with my colleague, Piia Karhu.

Good afternoon also on my behalf, and we are excited to tell you how we go beyond on the Minerals segment as well. So in Minerals, when we look at globally the market today, we are #1 already globally. But as part of our strategy, is really go beyond and believe -- we do believe that we can be even stronger #1 on the Minerals segment. From financial targets perspective, our target is to reach above 20% adjusted EBITA. And of course, we also need to significantly contribute to the target of growth above 7%. So that's what we are committed to and that's what the strategy is built for. If we do look at our track record as Minerals segment since the merger, 2020, our adjusted EBITA was 14.5%. So we've been able to grow that with 3 percentage points. Last year, we reached 17.5% adjusted EBITA. And also on the growth side, we have been successful, so EUR 2.5 billion sales on 2020. And last year, we reached EUR 3.7 billion in terms of sales. So I think that shows that we can deliver our plans that we have put together, and that's what we are planning to do also with the go beyond strategy. Let's start with our unique portfolio of solutions to the market. What you see on this slide is a very simplified picture of Minerals processing plant and what is the unique portfolio of solutions that we actually do offer to this market. And each one of these solutions actually consist of our both equipment and aftermarket offerings, so wear, spares services that we deliver to our customers and how do we see our position today when we combine the solutions together. So as you can see, we are #1 globally on many of the areas here already. So crushing, grinding, separation, filtration are areas where we are #1. However, we do see a lot of potential for us to create more value for customers also on these areas and continue our growth journey, even though we are #1 already today. Then what you also see here is that there are areas where we are not #1 yet. And those are the areas where we will work a bit differently to actually work towards #1 or 2 position globally on the market. Those would be screening, pumps, tailings management as areas. And of course, that will require that we will actually focus our capital a bit more on those areas, and then also work a bit differently to reach #1 or 2 position. In our portfolio, we have also Metals Refining, Process Solutions, so hydrometallurgy and smelting solutions. On those areas as well, we are #1 globally today. And on those areas, we will focus on copper and gold, which very nicely substitute -- not substitute, to complement our strengths on those 2 minerals areas. A few words about also our current sales breakdown. These are based on last year's sales numbers. So 55% of our business is coming from the comminution part. So consisting of crushing, grinding and screening, technologies and solutions for our customers. So this is a very important area for us. Then the beneficiation part, separation, tailings pumps, dewatering is about 1/3 of our sales last year, and then the rest constitutes the rest. And as you can see, aftermarket share is 66%. So already quite high. But of course, our aim is to continue that journey. We can create even more value from the aftermarket perspective, and grow in all of these areas with our aftermarket offering. A little bit about our commodity mix. So more than 40% of our sales is coming from copper. Then iron ore, gold are the next biggest ones together about 30% of our sales at the moment. And then there's a number of other minerals and metals that we deliver our solutions to. As has been discussed today, the growth drivers for copper are very good at the moment. Electrification, of course, drives copper demand but also data centers have become a significant driver for copper growth on the recent years. Ore great depletion is something that is driving the need to actually crush and process more of material. So that's also growing the need for our equipment and our solutions. And then what we also see is the geopolitical factors influencing the fact that many of our customers actually in certain geographic areas, want to become more independent with Minerals and Metals. A little bit more about the growth outlook for the biggest minerals and metals that we work with on the market. So as you can see, until 2030 copper processing ore, so processing of ore into copper is expected to grow about 100 million tons a year. So that basically means more than 1 big greenfield plant in the world needs to come live every year in order for us to reach this forecast. But what is interesting here as well is that, of course, iron ore is growing almost with the same amount. It's a high-volume mineral. So almost close to 100 million tons as well. So great outlook for both of these Minerals. And of course, at this moment, we are discussing with a number of greenfield plants, but also a number of brownfield plants that how can they increase capacity during this period.

Then if we look at our aftermarket and how we've been performing. So looking back since the merger of the two great companies, Metso and Outotec, we've performed quite nicely. So we have seen that we have taken our aftermarket business from EUR 1.6 billion to EUR 2.4 billion. So roughly a 9% annual growth rate on this space. And this has been a consistent result for us, and this is what we are looking forward to growing even further. So how are we doing this? What is the foundation of our aftermarket growth? It, of course, starts with our extensive installed base out there in the market. That's what we are serving all the time. So you can see that there's more than 20,000 crushers and screens out there in the market, Metso crushers and screens. More than 8,000 grinding mills, more than 5,000 filters, more than 15,000 deliveries of flotation equipment. All of those equipment needs to be maintained. They need to be upgraded. They need to be modernized. So this is the foundation block of our aftermarket business. On top of this one, of course, my dear colleague is serving new capital equipment all the time, which creates more additional installed base for us to service on the aftermarket space. And this is exactly one of the other growth areas. You saw that the numbers are picking up when it comes to copper, gold and iron especially, and that creates new installed base for us to service in the future. On top of that one, we are looking -- we have the third-party installed base. So we have a lot of value-adding solutions, Metso capabilities, competencies, so we can serve the third-party aftermarket. So we have the crusher wears, we have the mill linings, we have the upgrades and modernization that we can do on the third-party equipment, and that is also installed base that we can service in the future. Then if we look at it, one of our core strategic advantages and differentiators from our competitors is our global service presence. So we have strategically chosen to be there close to our customers, serving our customers. This is the value that we bring to the table as Metso every day of the week. You can see that we have impressive numbers. 3,500 service experts out there. We are present in more than 50 countries with our field and expert services. And we have more than 500 life cycle service contracts. Life cycle service contracts are service contracts that span over 12 months or more, and then we typically combine our labor efforts with our parts sales in these contracts. So we have more than 500 of those providing us recurring revenue streams. You can see as well that we are continuously investing into the presence close to our customers. So since the last CMD, I think Pasi was referring to this in his presentation as well. The black dots represent the investments that we've done since the last CMD. So we are there close to our customers. We have already invested more, and we will continue investing more to be there close to our customers, serving our customers, helping them to achieve their targets. Then looking at our Minerals one pager. So we want to be #1 in Minerals. We are already #1, but we want to be industry benchmark #1, everyone looking up to us. Looking at the strategic priority areas that we're working with, we are well positioned in copper as Piia was stating already, gold, all the energy transition minerals. And we want to be the undisputed #1 in the energy transition minerals going forward. That is where we are investing heavily. We are also working to serve our value-driven customers. And everyone always ask, okay, what does value-driven mean in this case. So we provide equipment reliability, uptime, production performance in terms of capacity and product quality, safety and sustainability to our customers. Those are the values we bring to the table every day of the week, and that's what our customers are asking for us. High aftermarket intensity. This is in the core of the Metso's strategy as well as in the Minerals strategy, making sure that we are investing into the technologies, focusing on those technologies that bring us high recurring revenues in the future as well. Sami has already talked about the focus areas that we have. So strengthen #1 position. This is the core of the bedrock that we have today. So these are solution areas, technology areas where we are already #1 in the world. And these technologies are -- and solutions are providing us the desired profitability level. So we will continue investing into the absolute technology leadership and making sure that we defend and grow our business in this focus area. The second point, as you have seen, we have to reach #1 to 2 positions, so really investing for expedited growth. So this is where our M&A money will be diverted to. We're really looking at how do we expedite having a different playbook compared to the bucket #1 in this case. And then the third one is the improved profitability and reinforce position. So here, we can actually be #1, but we are not yet yielding the profits that we would like to yield out of these solutions and technologies. And this is actually a major contributor to our self-help potential as well. We have a lot of good action plans ongoing to make sure that we can lift our profitability and retain that #1 position. Then looking at the enabler side of our business, customer-centric growth culture. I typically say this that we are the -- as Metso, we are at the University of minerals processing. So we bring the talent in, we can train our talent, we expand our talent to the world. So we are a powerhouse in Minerals Processing, and we aim to be that, and we are really focusing on bringing that customer value to life. This segment focus enables us to really look at the customers' end-to-end value chain, starting from the large investment process all the way to the optimized operations. And this is exactly what we, as Metso, will bring to the table, and this is the value that we bring to our customers, as Sami was stating in his presentation already. And of course, we are a technology company. We invest to be the absolute technology leader, and we are also heavily investing into digital. We will hear a bit more of that later on this presentation. But we are really striving to be the technology and digital leader in the field of Minerals Processing.

So let's then deep dive a bit more on how we're actually going to do the strategy execution? And what are the most important activities that we will drive forward. So starting with the left-hand side box crushing and grinding, what they're going to do there. On those areas, we are #1 already. And as you saw a bit earlier, they form a significant part of our sales today. But we do see that there's definitely potential to grow more, add more value for customers and therefore, be even more strongly #1 on different parts of the world, different parts of customer segments. Definitely important area for us is to grow in crushing. So grow in our primary territories, cone crushers, jaws, also mobile stations and in-pit crushing and conveying systems will be part of our growth. And naturally also the wears and spares we want to grow for our customers. In the grinding part, we will focus for energy-efficient grinding, you'll hear a bit more about that today. But in the core of that is stirred mills growing in that area, both on the capital side and aftermarket side. And definitely, we also want to drive growth with our HPGR portfolio. Expanding in the premium aftermarket will be the focus area here. So what it means is that we want to capture the aftermarket of all of the equipment, greenfield plants that we have sold to our customers and delivered. We want to make sure that we cover greatly the installed base that Heikki was speaking a bit earlier, but we will also go after third-party installed base even more rigorously on this area. We also will continue to launch new products. We have been active on bringing new products to the market on this area, but we do see that since we are a technology leader, it's also our responsibility to continuously listen to customer needs, address those and bring new products to the market. Then if we look at the screening and pumps area where we are not #1 today. So we are -- in screening, we are #2 or 3 globally. In pumps, we are maybe #3 or 4 globally in the Minerals Processing side. So in this area, as discussed today, our target is to become #1 or 2. And that does require a bit different actions that actually what we are doing on the red box in a way. because we actually really have to be clearly, clearly, clearly doing things differently than what we have been doing so far. So here, we will need to expand our product portfolio from what it is today. Selm acquisition was already discussed today, as an example, on the screen side, how we are expanding our product portfolio. So with Selm, we got, for example, ultrafine screens to our portfolio that we can now then utilize also on the Minerals side. But there will be more that we need to do on the expanding the product portfolio side, both for screening and pumps. Definitely, we will go after growing our market share. It does require investments, and those activities are already ongoing. Then the third important topic is actually regional approach to our operations. This business is more regional than some of the other businesses on the Minerals Processing side. So therefore, we need to cater for that need in the market. And our approach to the operations will be more regional on this area than what it has been on the past. Let's then move on to the beneficiation part of the flow sheet and our solutions. So consisting of separation, filtration, thickening and also tailings management. Here, we are in a very good position to grow on all of these areas. So in separation, filtration and thickening, we are known for really good recovery of minerals and also very good performance on the dewatering side. But also when we look at our geographical presence at the moment, we do have room to grow in certain areas. So that will be the big focus area here. On this area, also, we have been active on the R&D side and we have recently launched our flotation technology for the ultra-fine materials, and that has been a great success. So we continue to, of course, grow in that area. But what we are also very excited about is that during next year, we will launch our coarse flotation technology to market, something that has been, let's say, long looked at in the industry because this is targeted for the more coarse materials and also means that there's been less grinding required from a customer perspective. So we've been working on this area for years already. We've been doing intensive testing during the recent year and more, and the results are very good. So we are looking forward to launching this product next year. Tailings management is an area where we are maybe #1, #2 at the moment. So here, we see potential for growth for us also in certain market areas, we do also see a clear pickup for the business in this area. We will focus here more on the small- and medium-sized tailings operations because there, we think that our kind of value add is best for the customers. Furthermore, industrial filters is an area that we see great potential for us to grow. Industrial filters market is about EUR 5 billion a year. So we do see that we definitely have room to take our share, bigger share of that market. And then, of course, expanding on the aftermarket side is something that we do believe that we can do here. With the great global presence that Heikki was talking about, there's room to capture more modernizations, upgrades is something that are important part of our growth in this area. And then like I already said, we also have a hydrometallurgy and smelting process solutions in our portfolio. Here, the focus is on copper and gold. So these technologies very nicely complement our full offering for the copper and gold customers and a very nice pipeline of opportunities at the moment, particularly on these areas. Here, there is room to increase productization. So that we will focus on, and then definitely also there's room to grow aftermarket. So make sure that the large installed base that we have today that we will cover that with our existing aftermarket services. Technology leadership. Let's talk about that one a bit more. Annually, on the Minerals segment, we invest about EUR 75 million on R&D. So this is consisting of our technology investments, exploration work and then also our digital services. Of course, what we want to address here is the changing world of mining and how we enable sustainable modern life. But then, of course, we have a very intense discussion with our customers on their needs and what do they see as areas where they would need even better solutions from us. And those customer needs are ranging from improved safety of the operations and improved serviceability of the operations. Energy efficiency will continue to be a big topic on this industry. Separation efficiency, a lot of money on that for our customers, but then also pre-concentration efficiency, which then kind of enables that the processing need is less for the customers. Tailings management continues to be a big topic on our industry water circularity. And then also interesting area, secondary processing, either of e-scrap as an example, or then also tailings bonds -- tailings materials. And then we just thought that it's always nice to highlight some of the R&D work that we have been doing a few examples of that, that we are really proud and that are getting traction on the marketplace. So a good example is the HPe cone crusher series that we launched earlier this year, HP600e, 800 and 900 and we are looking for beyond that as well, very well perceived by the marketplace, and we are expecting a good success of this range. On the crusher wear side, the MX crusher wears has been a great success. I mean, the wear life is basically double with the wear. So, of course, the value proposition for the customers is great. On the grinding side, our big focus is on the stirred mills technology. So the Vertimill 7000 is an example of that range. It's the biggest machine on our stirred mills range. We do see that customers are demanding for bigger and bigger machines on the stirred milling area, also. Super materials. What this means for us is that the wears and spares that we offer for our customers have a longer lifetime. So therefore, of course, a very, very important area for us and customers that we do have research ongoing on this area. The coarse particle flotation, I already mentioned, so I'll skip over that. The 3712 tailings filter is particularly targeted for the tailings management side. So a good fit-for-purpose product, particularly for the tailings operations. And then still maybe shortly about the secondary metals refining. We do see a clear growth in terms of discussions with our customers that how can they actually extract copper and other precious minerals from e-scrap. And of course, batteries recycling is another area where we have technology. And then also old tailings -- that is their business case to actually extract minerals out of the tailings. So definitely a growing area that amount of discussions is picking up, and we have great process solutions for this area also.

Okay. We promise to come back to you a bit on the digital and automation side of it. And we have basically two kind of horizons that we are looking at here. First of all, creating new customer value. Secondly, we're looking improving our internal efficiencies with the data points here as well. We start from really creating the customer value and automation is a big topic for us. And definitely, as an example, analyzer, our courier analyzers are the industry benchmark there, by far, the most known product in this world, and they are the industry benchmark, all of the, let's say, high-value customers really strive to have those analyzers in their processes. And this is something that we have invested quite heavily. Then when we come to start mixing up the kind of the improved internal efficiency, creating new customer value, process performance and equipment performance. Those are key areas for us, looking at holistic processes, but also then a single equipment and how can we make the most out of it with the digital solutions. How can we help our customers? I'll actually deep dive into the equipment performance a bit more. And then we have strictly what we call business enablement as well. So that is where we are working with the data that we receive and what can we do within our internal processes to make ourselves more efficient in the future, making sure that we get the maximum streamlined harmonized processes, use the value of the data to our own benefit in our internal process. But then if we jump into the equipment performance. So we are really pushing towards the data-driven optimized performance and services. You can see that it is already available for a variety of technologies, crushing, screens, grinding, mills, pumps, analyzers, flotation, filtration as an example. And we have really productized it in a way that we can bring customer value to their reach. So it starts with the technical support. The traditional way has been that the customer calls us and then there's a lot of time and effort being spent that, okay, what actually went wrong? How can we help? Do we even understand the facts that would happen? So in this case, if we have connected equipment we can remotely look at it with our expertise immediately. We can actually spot sometimes in advance these cases already. And then we have all the data available to support the customer in their need immediately. So we have the expert online supporting the customer. So that's the baseline what we have, is the technical support. The second level is the data-driven condition monitoring. So we are really extracting the running data of the pieces of equipment and we have created AI-powered predictive maintenance procedures that can forecast the upcoming failures in the piece of equipment. This enables us to proactively be in contact with our customers telling them that, hey, you are going to see an event happening soon. You should get prepared. You can do preemptive works to make sure that you maximize the uptime and reliability of your crusher or a mill or a pump or a screen in this case. And then the furthest here is the performance monitoring. So then we start looking into feed material outcoming -- the output of the equipment, the operating parameters. And we can see that if there's deficiencies on how the customer is operating the piece of equipment, we can provide them support, help on how to get the most out of it. So these are the 3 different levels that we are doing on the equipment performance. And this year, 2025, we've really seen a pickup on this. See, it's kind of a turning point. So now this year, we are seeing that we have quadrupled the amount of connected equipment in the Minerals space.

Then moving forward to the self-help topic that Pasi was talking about a bit earlier on this event. So on the Minerals segment, we do believe that with the self-help initiatives, we can generate more than 1 percentage point increase to our adjusted EBITA. So highlighting five areas on the self-help potential for the Minerals segment. So first of all, we have now a very focused portfolio, as you have seen throughout the presentations today. We know what we are focusing on and also what are the targets for the three buckets of our solutions that we are working on. We have also made decisions to divest some part of our businesses, loading and hauling as an example from this year. So that also just confirms that we will be very focused with our portfolio moving forward. Supply chain and logistics continues to be an area where we can drive savings efficiencies. Pasi talked about that one quite a lot already, but maybe I'll add to that talk also that in some areas, we have also increased our in-house manufacturing capabilities. So for example, this year, we have invested on our Romanian screen media factory and then also for our Mexico factory for the filter plates. So those are also examples how we can improve our efficiency in this area. Heikki spoke about what all we are doing on data and AI-driven productivity. Our team of Metsonites is super excited to innovate how their work can be much easier with the use of data and AI. And we have a long list of use cases that we are working to bring live. But maybe a few examples from this area more. So for example, on the proposal making, we are already using AI-driven solutions that will bring speed to our proposal making and also kind of reduce the time that we spent, for example, with technical questions coming from our customers, very simple, but really driving efficiency. Also for our field service agents, we are using database services and AI to actually help them be pre-prepared the task that they are going after, very well perceived by our people and simplifying the preparation for the site visits. But then also, we are looking for possibilities on a flow sheet development, procurement, et cetera. So of course, the possibilities are vast in our business also. Design for manufacturing. What this does mean is that with product design, we can still drive efficiencies on the manufacturing side so that it's easy to manufacture, the lead times are better, et cetera. So here, we have good potential, both on the capital and aftermarket side. And also the fact that the process itself from design to manufacturing is super-efficient. Here, this is also a big self-help improvement area for us. And then fifthly, I would like to highlight the quality management, where we are driving for even more rigorous process on how we take learnings from potential quality events related to, let's call it, product quality, process quality, delivery quality. And by having a good learning loop from quality issues, we can actually then learn and make sure that overall, the effects are less on the future.

Then if we look at our EBITA bridge. So looking at the first half of 2025, we have produced 16.9% of adjusted EBITA. And we are looking at a similar bridge that we have already shown both in our Metso level as well as in the Aggregates segment. So of course, market growth will provide us an uptick on the profitability. That's driven by the fact that we have a scalable operating model. So when the market picks up, we can scale up, that will yield us more bottom line. We have specific growth actions, especially in those where we are already #1 or we want to reach #1 or 2 positions. And there, we have healthy profits on those solutions levels. And we have growth actions driving that the center there. And then big part of us is the self-help. We already addressed quite a bit of them. but there is a lot more that we can do. So especially this AI digital-driven stuff, how can we make sure that our processes are efficient. And then there is one additional topic that really gives us a good foundation for the future to build more self-help and really materialize those benefits. The fact is that Metso and Outotec merged 2020. And we were actually really good at delivering the synergies and materializing the synergies out of that merger. But the reality is that after this year, we have been actually operating in two different ERP systems. So this year, we are consolidating our ERP systems. We are getting into one modern platform from the 21st century. And this allows us to drive efficiencies in the future within our strategy period, so we are confident that by 2028, we can make more than 20% adjusted EBITA in the Minerals segment. So looking at all of this that we have presented today. So really strategic actions for us is that we are well positioned to be the #1 in energy transition minerals, copper being the biggest driver in this space. We are pushing today, we're at 66% in our aftermarket. We are really pushing for the aftermarket intensive products, not at the expense of our capital sales, we want to grow further on the aftermarket side of it and we want to reach 70% share of aftermarket in the space of minerals. And as just explained, we are really committed to delivering that above 20% adjusted EBITA in the Minerals segment. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Piia. Thank you, Heikki. We start questions. And maybe we need to -- Panu, do you have a question because you were waiting for a long time already. You need to be the first.

My question was in Aggregates that wasn't answered, but actually I was wondering on the U.K -- thanks for giving the upgrade on the sales split by Minerals, but that's including aftermarket on products you sold earlier. So how would that look for the new equipment orders that you're taking in?

So you mean basically the split that we were showing the 55% for the combination, et cetera.

No, I mean copper, gold and those.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So basically per commodity. Well, I don't have the exact numbers here right now, but the mix is pretty much similar if you -- particularly if you take a couple of years' average. So the picture is pretty much similar.

Okay. If I can squeeze another one. So do you think M&A is needed to get you to, #1 to 2, in those areas that you identified?

Definitely, M&A is part of our playbook moving forward. We have a good list of opportunities and also some discussions ongoing at the moment. We do see that in order to grow M&A needs to be part of the playbook.

Next one, let's take from the back, Vlad.

Vlad from Barclays. Can I ask 2 questions? First of all, on the commodity split that you provided, would you be able to disclose your total exposure to bulk commodities and not just to iron ore? That's the first question. And second question there, 40% exposure to gold. Is there any room to grow it?

So sorry, your first question about -- was about bulk?

Was exposure to bulk commodities, meaning iron, ore and coal together.

As we saw on the graph, so basically the gold and iron ore together for us is about 30% of sales last year. So that's our exposure at the moment, consisting of capital and aftermarket solutions.

Sorry, if I understood correct. So iron, ore and coal, you meant? Coal is only 1% or 2% of our revenues on this space. So it's not a significant player. It's about some of the equipment is suitable for coal operations. We service them still.

Great. And then the other question I had was on whether you can grow the exposure to gold from the current 14% that you have?

Yes. At the moment, gold investments are moving forward very fast. So what we see is that a number of active discussions with potential new gold greenfield plants, but also on the brownfield side. So we do see that particularly at this moment, I think we all know the reasons why the gold investments are lucrative and they move forward on the fast speed. Of course, the commodity mix is consisting of the equipment and aftermarket. So the equipment turns to aftermarket a bit with delay. But yes, there's potential that the gold is even more important for us on -- at least on the near future.

That's great. And final question on HPGR. Would you be able to share your view of what's the role of HPGR going forward? Because, of course, you have a couple of competitors that were quite vocal about this technology for a long time now. And I don't think there is a lot of evidence that it's actually materialized into material and market opportunity yet.

Yes. You're right about that one. Our estimate on the HPGR total market is about EUR 100 million. So on the big scale of combination, it's not huge. We do see that over the years moving forward, we do forecast that, that market will grow. But still, let's say, the other technologies will play a significant role there as well. When it comes for our kind of HPGR portfolio, we will actually talk about it a bit more this afternoon as well. I think we are very well positioned to continue our journey. Really, the strength of Metso is that we have with in our portfolio. So when customers designing a flow sheet, they can actually select the best suitable equipment for their need. And that, of course, is driven with the ore, the end product, the kind of the real estate that they have, where they actually put in the plant, et cetera. So how we are typically seeing is that we are the best partner when customers really want to optimize their flow sheet, and we also have the best process knowledge, which means that we are not promoting one particular technology, be it stirred mills or HPGR or horizontal grinding mill, but we have a portfolio that we can actually help customers to choose the best possible equipment for their particular needs.

Mikael.

Mikael Doepel, Nordea. A couple of questions on the aftermarket business. So you showed the chart there where you had -- or a picture where you had the installed base across the products. So I was wondering, what is your current coverage of your installed base in terms of your aftermarket business? How big part of that do you cover today? And where do you see that going in the future?

Well, it's a number that we don't disclose, but we are working all the time to improve it. And some of the installed base is quite old for us as well. So it means -- and sometimes we haven't actually supported some pieces of those equipment. But actually, we are bringing them back up. I think my dear friend, Saso was mentioning about these classics and even sometimes we call Jurassic equipment that we have operating there. And we have really picked up on kind of materializing the aftermarket to ourselves on that space. So we don't disclose what we have there, but we are actually working heavily with our digital efforts to really make sure that we would have the concrete information on when are we capturing the aftermarket and which space.

Okay. And then just a similar question on the connected. I'm not sure if you're going to answer that here, but how big part of your installed base currently connected?

Well, all the new equipment we have actually made the decision that we will equip the new technologies where we have the solutions ready. We will equip them to be prepared to be connected. Of course, it needs the approval of the customers because at the end, it's their operational data that we are tapping into. But we are -- now all the new piece of equipment, at the same time, the digital portfolio is done in such a way that we can retrofit that to existing piece of equipment, and it's not going to be a major cost. So when we upgrade or modernize something we can retrofit the capabilities of condition monitoring on that space.

I need to shoot a pump question here because the chat is full of them. So let's discuss all of them at the same time. So how can you capture pump market share? And is M&A playing a role there?

Well, I think obviously is that M&A is playing a role there. I think we've been active in the market. We've shown that we have already made some acquisitions in that space, and we are looking further in that space. Also, of course, with the new capital equipment, we're also always trying to capture the new pump cases at the same time. But we have really good technologies. And on those specific areas, we are also looking at replacing competitors' pumps in the existing flow sheet. So it's not just new equipment. Sometimes pumps are -- how should I say this, more like self-destroying pieces of equipment, so we can actually replace the existing vendor there and the site as well. And we have really good technologies in this space.

All right. Maybe one more before we go to break. Will?

I'll pass on the pump question. So conceptually, just for people's thinking and mine. Can you just talk to how you expect the growth of OE and aftermarket to develop within the strategic time frame because you're looking for market share gains in aftermarket. So is that going to grow faster than your OE business? That's the first question. And then the second, maybe again, more conceptual in service. I mean, if I look at the inventory levels at the group level, inventory days are at 200, which suggests you've got inventories which are sitting there for more than a year and then some which are less. When you think in principle about your service business and your need to serve your customer, how long is your inventory? What is your typical turn? What is it that's sitting out there for so long? And is there scope for you to shorten those through technology or better organization, better ERP, those sort of factors?

Yes. So if I start with the first one. And of course, I mean, we talk about now targets to 2028, which is a relatively short period on this kind of business. We strive for good growth on both of the areas, so capital and aftermarket. And as you well know, 1 or 2 bigger capital equipment projects can kind of shift the mix a little bit, maybe more on the order intake side than on the sales side. But definitely, we do see growth on both areas during this period.

Then talking about the inventory side of it here. So let's split the inventory into a bit of a piece. So if we look at our inventories, we have, of course, our finished goods inventories. We also have what we call work in progress, which is already sold, but we have it in our inventory because we are planning to deliver it to our customers. And then we have quite a bit of raw materials in our manufacturing units as well. So if we focus on the finished goods inventories, we do categorize them as fast, medium, slow-moving and excess inventories in that sense. Our focus definitely has been to reduce the excess inventory. So we need to have the healthy level of fast-moving items. And definitely, what you mentioned, we are driving to use the digital information, those capabilities to plan our inventories better. So if we can proactively see what is the demand coming from the piece of equipment, we can equip our supply chain to better serve that maybe reduce the inventory levels and be just on time better on that space. So that's definitely on the development cost for us and a big self-help potential also from the balance sheet perspective.

All right. Thank you. We need to pause here for a while. We go to our second break. Break will be over at the hour, so 5:00 p.m. local time here. And when we come back, it's a deep dive into segments. So see you in a bit. Thank you. [Break]

All right. Welcome back from the break. And this final segment of this event, like I said, discusses a couple of special areas in our businesses, areas where we think we currently have and in the future, will even more so have a competitive edge and differentiate from competitors and as such, make a lot of customer value. We start from aggregates digital business presented by Jaakko Huhtapelto.

All right. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. I hope you're ready to geek out a little bit about technology next. Yes. Good. Perhaps we will talk a little bit about the impact of digital business to Metso as well. My name is Jaakko Huhtapelto. I'm heading our Technology and Digital Business Operations for the Aggregates segment. It's a true pleasure to be here with you today, talk a bit about our transformation journey so far, the products we built for our customers and also what we are envisioning for the future. Before we get going, there are a couple of messages that I would like to highlight you today. First, the products and services we are about to talk in a few moments, they are indeed in production. So they are not some plans for the future. They are something our customers can buy. Second, we have built them to scale. So we are indeed looking for a meaningful impact to Metso during the next strategy period with these products. And last, we have a crystal clear thought on how are we going to capture the value, how are we going to monetize the technologies for Metso and measure the success along the way. With these words, let's hit the road. The North Star for us is, of course, the customer, and we focus on solving our customers' biggest challenges. These are very practical in nature in the Aggregate segment, and we believe and we have seen that we can solve these using technology. And these 3 areas are the ones that we focus on. This is our agenda. So first, keeping the equipment up and running, improving the uptime. This is where we infuse the traditional aftermarket business with modern technologies, state-of-the-art technologies to indeed talk about that AI-powered predictive maintenance. This is the holy grail for any OEM aftermarket out there. And today, I can gladly report that we have found the recipe on how to scale this service. This will be in the core of the aftermarket going forward. The second area is for our customers to get the most out of the assets, improve production performance. And here, we have some really cool pure software technology that can actually autonomously balance the production for our customers and give them more throughput. Here, you can actually see that on the right-hand side in the image, the software and the technology in action from our customers' office standpoint. This is a service that we sell through a subscription model, recurring revenue model. And finally, for us, it's super important to make things easy as possible for our customers to improve their productivity, save time. And this is what we do through the digital experience. We serve a lot of very small entrepreneurs in the Aggregate segment, and they spend their day during a site like this. And when they go home in the evening, that's when they take out the parts books and start making requests for quotes for the next week operations. This is, of course, the time we want them to be able to spend with their families and for example, make part ordering something they don't even need to think about. So this deep dive will be now focusing on 3 individual areas. I will be giving you practical examples of what they mean. We've talked today a lot about the aftermarket and the share of it and the importance of it and how are we going to grow it. And this is the holy grail of it, AI-powered predictive maintenance. This topic is really close to my heart. I spent half a decade in the aftermarket business, and I understand how complex this problem is to solve. And I'm really happy to be here today to showcase what we have done. We have cracked the code on how to do this in a scalable way. I talk a lot about scale because in the aggregate segment, that's a must-have. We serve more than 20,000 customers in the segment. So for that to be sustainable, it needs to scale and scale end-to-end to be more precise. And what do I mean with end-to-end scalability? I mean that once we have equipped the assets when they leave the factory, we understand and we can see what's going on with them, what's the performance like, what's the asset health like. We take that information into our AI platform. We do our magic there. We enrich the content with contextual understanding. We enrich it with product information, part information. We enrich it with our OEM recommendations to be a package. And then we deliver that to our customers and distributors to their preferred device with no human interaction. This is what I mean with end-to-end automation, and this is what we are doing. This is pretty fantastic. And actually, on the back, you can see then the experience layer. And this is really important from the value capture point of view because right when a customer receives that maintenance notification, just next to it, you can see the add to cart button. And this is how we capture the value. We grow the aftermarket business by being closer to customer, giving them better experience, better service, and this will then help us grow. But it doesn't stop here. This whole maintenance phenomena is not only about understanding what to maintain. But in that function, there's also a time dimension, which is caused by our inventory network, us knowing what's in our stock, what's in the distributor stock, what's the lead time for those products because for you to be able to tell the customer that now you need to buy the product, it's not that you can see that it's about to break, but it's an equation of us then delivering the part. And here, we even start to talk about connected enterprise. We work with best partners. We have partnered with a company called Palantir here, and we can -- we are making some really exciting stuff. This is what lights my eyes in the morning when I wake up and go to work. Then let's move on to discuss the production performance. As I mentioned, here, we have built a pure software product that balances the production to our customers, giving them more throughput. So our customers typically runs this mobile equipment in a train formation, 2, 3 or 4 equipment in a row. And what this software does is that it actually makes the equipment recognize each other, understand that, yes, I'm #1, I'm #2, I'm #3 in the row. They understand how the production is behaving. If there's bottleneck piling up, they know that and then they can balance the setting of the train to balance the production and give more throughput. This is fantastic stuff. And you can actually see some of the results we've been able to demonstrate with our customers that are pretty significant. 80% reduction in deviation in the process and up to 10% increase in throughput. This is some really serious money to our customers. Also, I want to call out the manpower challenge, which is very present in the industry. In the past, when our customers didn't have this technology, the excavator operator needed to jump down from the excavator, run down the stock -- the rock pile all the way to the crusher and either stop it or then change the settings from there. And actually, one of our customers broke a leg doing this a few years back. So it's unsafe. It's uncomfortable when it's rain and miserable. But now with this product, the customers can do all of that from the comfort of the excavator cabin, which is really significant for them because that's the way they can layer in the manpower they need to run these operations. Of course, for me, the key question is that how long will these guys and girls be in the excavator cabin? That's the question I'm thinking about. And what do we do as a company to address that point. This example is also a good demonstration from scalability standpoint. Because we can turn the software on whenever we like, when the customer decides to buy it. We have equipped this mobile equipment already in the factory when they leave with the relevant hardware and instrumentation. So when our customer decides to buy that subscription, we can turn it on, which is pretty significant. And this is a demonstration how we built in the scalability into the products and services we are doing. This example was from the mobile contract to customer point of view. But I think Saso pointed out that we have actually pretty cool stuff coming out for our quarry customers as well. So perhaps we talk about that the next time. And finally, the experience and what we like to call the digital channel to our customers and distributors. We have done a significant transformation in this space during the past couple of years, where we have completely renewed the technology stack which we run on. Now it's completely scalable, and it's scalable and future-proof. Why this is important? It's important because we want to infuse the whole customer interface with agentic technologies that can give better service to our customers faster with a lower cost footprint. And now our architecture is fully aligned with that strategy. We've done some experimentations in the past when this wasn't the case, and it ended up being expensive and slow. So we are future-proof. So this is the window to our products and services we sell to our aggregates customers and be it the predictive maintenance, be it the subscription models or the core products, which are equipment and aftermarket. And today, we are doing somewhere between EUR 250 million, EUR 300 million annually through the channel, which is a significant part of the Aggregates segment model and inherently more profitable business. So this is the third leg, and this is where it all comes together. Before moving on to the key takeaways, I wanted to say a few words about the people behind this because they are truly exceptional. We look at this competence and capability area as strategic, which means that we need to own these capabilities. We need to own them to be in the driver's seat, but also to be cost efficient with the development. And during the past couple of years, we have been very consistent in building this muscle internally. And today, we can truly say that we are in the driver's seat with all of the products, technologies and services you've seen. So a few words for conclusion. We have very clear priorities what we do. And we have a very clear strategy on how we capture the value and monetize them. Second, we are future-proof with our technologies. And we have in-built the AI in all of the areas that we've talked about, LLMs, business automation, machine vision in the performance services as well as the agentic technologies for the experience. They are already there being built. So it's not like we are figuring out what to do. It's there and it will be there for the future. And lastly, the store is open. The products are available for our customers, and this is how we drive profitable growth from our end. I hope I managed to excite you as much as I am excited about this business space. So yes, we can now continue the discussion and perhaps Juha, you take it from here.

Thanks very much, Jaakko. Let's warm up with a question from the chat, and this is from Ed Hussey. Could predictive maintenance cannibalize aftermarket sales? So fewer equipment breakdowns means lower traditional aftermarket content needed?

Definitely not. And I think we are the one that needs to cannibalize, if any. And it's not like we have 100% market share in the segment. So there's plenty of room to grow.

All right. Then questions from the room. Christian?

Christian from Goldman Sachs. You talked about the built-in hardware for aggregates digitalization in terms of the machine sales today. What proportion of customers are actually taking that up on outbound sales? And then if that's a low percentage, should we see a margin drag if that takes time for customers to convert?

We have been equipping the equipment for a couple of years already. So it's basically a pretty insignificant number. And now we are adding value to the customers that have been already using the connected devices with completely new services. So I don't see a margin impact there.

Will?

The question, I guess, it's how is your -- well, another question on your vision for how to capture value from what you're offering. I mean you can offer software subscription services, a certain fee, you can achieve greater stickiness or connectivity to your customer and then for, get them to come back and buy off a web portal. So I'm just sort of thinking longer term, where do you -- is this just an additional sales feature that you need to offer that you're giving away the software to connect them to make the sale? Or do you have a vision for how this grows into a more valuable proposition?

Yes. I think it's fair to say that we are in the beginning of this predictive maintenance. And -- over time, I can envision a price tag for certain elements of it, be it on the availability side, be it somewhere else. But I feel that we are at the point where we are still enriching the algorithms, and we don't want to make a bottleneck of that to us that we want the service to scale. We want the adoption rate to be high for us to continue learning, continue developing the algorithms. And perhaps over time, when we can deliver even more value, there can be a separate price tag next to it. But this is how we go to market now.

Just in terms of serving the market, you put up a number of EUR 250 million of sales through your web portal. And those are now, I guess, a direct sales customer from you to the customer. So have you got to invest in new distribution centers and routes to market to fulfill that demand you're creating?

Actually, the number is for our distributors. The number. And as you can like draw the conclusion from the services I demonstrated, they are directed to the end customers. So this will be now the completely new area for us to grow. We have direct markets where we sell through Metso salespeople. So that's clearly an area where we can launch this. But in the distributor markets, the distributors are the ones that are closing the sale with the customer. So there, we will deliver a certain part of this digital service to distributors. If there are requests for quotes, we will pass them on as leads to our distributors and then the distributors are the one that closes the sale. This is, by the way, a good demonstration of the scalable platform because the distributors are already in the same platform. Lead passing, measurement and us driving the success there is now in our hands and is completely scalable.

More questions? If not at this stage, thanks very much, Jaakko. We can continue discussions afterwards. But now is the time for our second deep dive, which as a theme is at least as exciting as we had in aggregate. So from Minerals side, talking about improving energy efficiency in combination, it will be Giuseppe Campanelli.

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I guess I'm that last presenter of the day between you and the cocktails outside. I'll try to make it engaging and maybe a good discussion topic when we're out there. Just a few words before I get into the presentation. I thought maybe I could bring a little bit of perspective on energy efficiency and comminution. So it's estimated that roughly 5% of the total world energy is consumed by the comminution process in the mining industry. So you can only imagine how important topic it is. It's important for all of us, of course, every day, and you can imagine how important it is for our customers every day. But above and beyond just the energy consumption and what it means to their cost base, it can have also for our customers a much bigger implication. Once a year, the Prospectors and Developers Association holds a conference in Toronto. And if any of you have been there or not been there, I welcome you to participate -- it's a very exciting event that happens. And at that event, you can see a tremendous amount of customers that want to develop a project from a deposit. And it's very interesting because it's global. They're from all over the world. And you notice some themes as you walk through the corridors at that event and realize that all these guys have fantastic deposits, great deposits, but in very difficult locations, making it extremely challenging for them to get their projects up and running. And one of the elements that makes it so difficult is, of course, access to energy. In these remote locations, it's difficult for them or even impossible for them to ever be connected to a grid. And therefore, for these guys, for these projects, energy efficiency can be the difference between whether you actually have a mine or you don't have a mine. If we think of a mine, say, in the Arctic in Northern -- I'm from Canada, and I think of these projects in Northern Canada, the Arctic, they need to barge diesel fuel up north through a transport season, which is roughly 1 or 2 months long. And so now they need to transport all the diesel that they need to consume in 1 year over this period of time and then store it there. Whether you're going to have 3, 4, 5 generators to operate your mine might make the difference as to whether you even have a mine. And it's not true anymore only for remote operating mines. Again, I live in Montreal, in Quebec, where 95% of the power is hydroelectric. And today, there are more projects than available electricity. So even if you can connect to the grid, you're not necessarily going to have access to the grid. And the right to have access to the grid is going to be whether or not you can demonstrate that you have an energy-efficient project. So you can tell that for these projects, it's a lot more than just energy saving. It's -- for some of them, it's whether I'm going to have a project or not. But let's get into a little more about the actual energy consumption of a comminution circuit. Thought I'd give a little perspective, what does it mean for a customer to save energy. So just a quick example. If we were to take a 100,000 tonne per day processing plant, why did we choose 100,000 tonne per day? We mentioned before, our largest consumer is a copper. And considering today's grades, roughly 100,000 tonnes per day is what you need to have as throughput to make that processing plant economically viable. So very common size plant for today's grades. Well, if we were to take a 100,000 tonne per day copper or plant, let's say, running doesn't need to be copper, 5% reduction in total comminution energy, well, it means roughly $3 million to $5 million a year of savings. And when we think of some of the technologies, we can actually achieve a lot more than 5% energy savings. So it really means so much for these guys. But if we take just a deeper dive in the flow sheet, and we look at it from 3 different stages. We have crushing stage, we got grinding stage and then we got tertiary regrind stage. The vast majority of the energy consumed is in the grinding stage. The red line will show you traditional grinding circuit. Traditional grinding circuit separated in 2 different grinding steps. The first step, primary grinding, traditional equipment SAG milling or ag milling and then in the secondary grinding stage, horizontal ball mills. Now when we think of energy-efficient equipment, we mentioned before, in the primary stage, HPGR. And roll crushing has been getting a lot of the limelight because as you can see, primary grinding is where the most energy consumption occurs. And in HPGR technology, Metso has fantastic HPGR technology. We have the largest operating HPGR in the world. We have introduced HPGR optimization technology, which today, all HPGRs are using or most anyway, which is the flange technology. And when we consider 2025 projects that hit the go button that use HPGRs, Metso has won the vast majority of them, including today, we've announced in a press release that Metso has won a project in Brazil, which includes HPGR and third milling. So very proud of that project and our Brazilian team. So that's primary grinding. And you can see the green line is the energy efficiency savings if you were to go from SAG milling to HPGR technology. But quite often, we neglect the energy consumption in the secondary grinding, which is almost equally as important as the primary grinding. And the reason for that is the only available technology was horizontal milling. Vertical milling, third milling has always been an option in secondary grinding. However, it has been volume limited. So in order to meet the volume of the horizontal grinding mills, you needed to have too many of these Vertimills. But Vertimill technology is quickly getting better, it is quickly getting bigger and is allowing us to use Vertimill technology in more mainstream larger flow circuits, larger circuits. So combined, HPGR and secondary grinding Vertimills, third milling, we can have massive energy consumption drops. And then, of course, in the tertiary regrinding, there we have, again, our vertical stirred mill technology and also our HIGmill, which is technology from Swiss Tower Mills that Metso has acquired this year. So combined Vertimill and HIGmill technology, Metso is by far the largest supplier and industry leader in stirred mill technology. So why isn't every circuit designed with an HPGR in vertical mills? Well, unfortunately, that's not the way life works. Ores are very different, vastly different from one place to another, and it all depends on the characterization. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And that's when, as Piia mentioned before, just as important is to have versatility in our ability to design flow sheets that match the ore that's being fed to the plant. And so that's where Metso has, in totality, a very versatile portfolio. If we can fit an HPGR and vertical milling, well, then, of course, that would be the best option because operating costs will be the lowest. But for many reasons, as Piia mentioned, sometimes it just doesn't work. Could it be real estate? Sometimes the ore characterization just doesn't work for HPGR. So then we need to revert to traditional technology. So a few examples of the versatility of our portfolio, and I thought maybe we can demonstrate by real-life scale production sites. So on the far -- my right, your left, HPGR to ball mill in copper ore, here is where we have our HRC 3000, the largest roll crusher in the world. SAG or AG mill straight into Vertimill. This was a gold operation, 6-meter SAG mill to VTM-4500. We also have, as in the project, like I mentioned, was sold this morning and this one here, roll crushing right into Vertimill technology, so very efficient circuit. And also some versatility in the regrind where we can mix both Vertimill and HIGmill. And the reason for that is that the Vertimill is usually used for the larger fraction, whereas the HIGmill is usually used for the smaller fraction. We have a full range of comminution solutions. If we look on the -- again, right here, we can see that our flow sheet covers very well all the different size comminution sizes. And in some instances, with some overlap, actually, if we look at the finer grinding, quite a bit of overlap. And this allows a lot of versatility when designing flow sheets. And you can see in the vertical milling, which is the second to the top and then the HIGmilling, which is the top, we truly own a vast majority of the market. When you look at the total installed base of our Vertimill technology -- or sorry, our vertical milling technology, which would be HIGmill and Vertimills, we have nearly 1,000 units installed globally. Just to bring a little perspective to what that means, almost 1,000 units combined, roughly 800 megawatts of saved installed power. And from an annual consumption perspective, sorry, I just need to look at my notes here for the number, 2.7 million megawatt hours saved per year. Just in layman's terms, roughly 25% of all the homes in Finland could be powered by that much energy saved every year. So Metso has really reduced the amount of energy consumption globally through its comminution equipment. But okay, that was all about developing a new flow sheet, developing a new mine when you need to choose equipment, how do we select the most energy-efficient comminution circuit. But the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the plants are built with the traditional technology that I showed before. Mining equipment lasts for a very, very long time. And in the past, that was the only technology that was available. So we need to also support those customers that do have the traditional flow sheet. And I'm not going to get into all the details here because I think Heikki did a fantastic job at describing all the things that we can do in the aftermarket side. But here, Metso does have a wide variety of upgrades and services that we offer to our customers to help them improve on an everyday basis, access to top comminution experts that help them look at their overall process and try to improve them on a daily basis, great products like process solutions that -- and tools like the courier like Heikki showed. And then, of course, we have our digital solutions, collecting data and helping our customers improve on a regular basis. So very quickly here, summarizing why would our customer choose Metso? One, I believe we do have the best technology as it comes to unit technologies. And the versatility in our portfolio allows our customer to really build the most efficient flow sheets. In addition to the equipment I described before to improve energy efficiency, we're also doing a lot of our research and development on early waste rejection. So this is early on into the mine where we try to get the gang out earlier. And then also in the coarse particle flotation, I know Piia mentioned it fairly quickly, but coarse particle flotation is going to allow a tremendous amount of energy reduction in the grinding stage. So we're doing a lot of work there to help our customers with that energy-efficient flow sheet. And that's equipment that we can add to existing flow sheets. And then, of course, our track record in innovating. We continuously develop equipment. We have a really strong record in developing new equipment and of course, the fact that the vast majority of the equipment out there is Metso installed base. And yes, that's it. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Giuseppe, for the insight. And a few questions for you. We are starting from the chat. Chitrita Sinha asks about potential cannibalization if HPGRs are replacing traditional milling equipment.

I don't think there'll be any cannibalization because we're happy to supply HPGRs and HPGRs are also a strong aftermarket equipment. But I mean, let's be honest, if there's a customer that's running a mill with a SAG mill, they're not going to remove the SAG mill to put an HPGR. That's not going to happen. In new flow sheets, we're happy to supply HPGR, which is a very profitable product and technology continues to develop.

Can you maybe discuss a little bit why does it not happen that HPGR would replace SAG mill or traditional mill out there?

Well, it can. You mean on an existing mine. It's just too capital intensive. It's just -- it will never happen. It's way too capital intensive. And maybe they don't have -- and most likely, they don't have the real estate. The return on investment wouldn't be there for how big of a project that would be.

All right. Questions from the room? Will Mackie.

You've got the technology. The value proposition is clear. Just can you scope for us when you look around the world in the different sort of characterizations of mines and materials that you can apply the technology to, how big is this market in terms of number of units a year or total value?

Yes, that's a good question. I'm not sure I know Piia is all the way in the back there. She probably knows that number a little more than I do. I can just tell you that whenever we work with our customers quite early on in their process when they're exploring, when they're developing the flow sheet for certain minerals, our first option is always to try to fit an HPGR for them because, again, from the energy efficiency perspective. But then come the trade-off studies. Do they have the real estate, the capital intensity of such a project of such equipment? And then the trade-off studies will tell them whether or not that technology can work. Still, we're selling SAG mills. There's a reason why we're doing that or AG milling. Maybe, Piia, you know the size of the market roughly.

Yes. Maybe I'll just comment on that one. So clearly, the major part of the market today is about the traditional grinding mills, so horizontal grinding mills. We do see the third mills market growing, but it's still on the -- much below half of the market at the moment. But when we look at the growth next 10 years, for sure, the role of third milling will be bigger.

This is Tom from DNB Carnegie. Perhaps just a bit of clarity on the capital cost for the customer with HPGR instead of the grinding kind of flow sheet.

Well, the capital cost, we need to really factor in not just the cost of the equipment. You really need to look at the overall real estate. HPGR requires a lot of real estate and how you get the ore in and out relative to the SAG mill. And then also from a maintenance perspective, these HPGRs use very big heavy rolls. And really, you need to either move them to a service center such as Metso's but you normally don't have most mines -- well, you have to build the infrastructure to be able to pick those up and move them and bring them somewhere or you build your own capabilities. And all of that is a massive cost, whereas a SAG mill, well, the maintenance costs are -- of course, you have mill linings that you need to replace, but you don't have the capital intensity to be able to need to maintain a SAG mill. Again, trade-off. It's very, very different depending on the location, the country, your construction costs, whether you have access to real estate or not. I mean, if you think of a mine that's being built 4,000 meters above sea level, real estate is a big deal.

Basically, the CapEx cost is higher and you have more maintenance costs, but you have then big energy savings. That's -- that's kind of the calculation.

You have more energy savings for sure. The capital cost is normally higher, but the maintenance costs are not necessarily higher. That's very relative to where you are in the ore type and so forth because SAG mills also have a high maintenance cost. They consume a lot of energy. They consume grinding media. So again, I wish I could stand here and tell you what the answer is. There's a reason why our customers hire engineering companies to do this type of trade-off studies and analysis for them. It's very, very different per mine by different ore type.

So I'd just like to follow up on the competitive landscape in relation to what we're discussing here. How would you characterize Metso's leadership position and ability to offer a complete solution compared to what else is out there for customers to consider?

I think we definitely are #1 to be able to offer the full scope. We have, I think, the best -- we definitely have the best technology in the stirred milling, and I don't think anyone comes close in all the different size fractions. So from the smallest -- the biggest to the smallest size fraction, that's for stirred milling. And then in the HPGR, I think we have the best technology as well, and we've proven that by increasing our sales this year. And we have -- we're growing our installed base. So I believe we're #1 position for both those technologies.

More questions? If not directly to this topic, thank you, Giuseppe. And we still have -- before we need to close the whole event, we have some time to take questions that you might have in mind for basically all the presenters. So if I would ask Sami and Pasi maybe to join me on the stage and if the presenters can be available there to answer certain dedicated questions. Maybe I'll scroll back to the beginning, and there were a few questions not answered yet about the kind of group presentations. So I'll take Chitrita Sinha's question that when one of the strategic pillars is the growth of aftermarket. How do you anticipate to counteract with the potential mix headwind we expect to see if OE, so equipment business grows faster than aftermarket in the cycle?

Yes. This is very well calculated in our analysis for the strategy period. Typically, if we take like a full delivery of gold plant, for example, large gold plant, that is something like EUR 150 million. It's a large project for us in the capital equipment point of view. And true aftermarket margins are better than the capital equipment margins, although capital equipment, we have also very good clear double-digit numbers there as well. But the revenue recognition of the capital project order is booked for 1 quarter, but then the revenue recognition happens for the next 5, sometimes 6 or 7 quarters going forward. And meanwhile, as we have the aftermarket focus, it means that the aftermarket is going to be growing basically quarter after quarter, and that is then offsetting this potential risk in the margin, and we don't see that happening because of this fact.

Klas Bergelind asks that -- well, he first states that you are saying that you have involved 150 Metso employees in the strategy work, and there's a lot of engagement. But will you change incentives in the organization to support targets, especially given that targets are now 3 years out?

Yes.

Okay. On the M&A strategy, you are saying that 1% or 2% of the sales growth would come from acquired growth and the net debt-to-EBITDA target that said below 1.5x. Does that mean that you are not looking at any larger deals?

We are definitely open for larger deals. I think the strategy work has been more focused on having those so-called bolt-ons. They can be significant in the size as well. But it's not saying that we wouldn't be at all interested to look the interesting alternatives. I think we have like McCloskey is like a larger deal that we did 5, 6 years ago, and it's a great success. So these type of targets are definitely also in our funnel.

Maybe to Pasi, another one from Klas. We know the balance sheet target, the margin set to improve, and there's more to do on working capital. At the same time, Metso wants to grow. So any more clarity you can give about kind of cash flow generation going forward, maybe working capital to sales or CapEx to sale kind of ratios?

Yes. Thank you, Klas, for that question. I mean, cash flow and working capital will be high on our agenda. We don't -- we haven't set a specific target on those. Maybe the performance first half of this year is an example. We've been able to release working capital. We've been able to create healthy cash flow. And I think that's a sign of any quality company. And via that, we are able to make sure that we can maintain our leverage target or leave within it and then have room to grow. I mean, I had some historical numbers in my presentation. So maybe that serves a little bit as a guidance regarding the overall capital allocation. So more than 50% has gone to dividends, then 1/3 roughly to CapEx type investments and then the rest in M&A. And I think this is a good proxy when you look slightly longer period also going forward in specific shorter periods, it may, of course, vary.

Another one that needs to be asked from CFO, and this is from Tore Fangmann. Could you put more numbers on the actual expected savings from various self-help measures?

I mean, what we have done today is that we have provided insights of the areas where we are working and the impact on the margin growth trajectory or waterfall. Then I think the area where we were more specific is the SG&A area. Other than that, unfortunately, we are not putting specific numbers or specific targets out there. But there is work ongoing with all the areas that we have mentioned today and the potential is there.

Maybe I can continue that we have 4 years, we have been running now what we call APP. It's the annual productivity plan. And that is for the whole organization. The whole organization knows about this. And the target for that is technically to offset the salary increases that happen every year. So to find productivity improvement from the organization. And this is now something -- this is the platform that we already have in place. And the idea for now for this strategy period is to use this platform to identify and execute those self-help initiatives also from the organization.

And then still to quantify the impact of the APP. So our annual salary bill is roughly EUR 1 billion. And then obviously, we operate across the globe with different inflation levels, but you can calculate with certain inflation percentage that what has been in the past periods, the target which we have reached on different annual APPs.

Thank you. Tom.

Again, it's Tom. So I would like to discuss your view on the market a bit more, and you mentioned that you expect the market bounce. So let's start with aggregates. You showed a picture where utilization ratios for customers are down 20%, and you still talk about the market bounce. So I guess this needs a bit of clarification.

Markku?

Yes. I guess the point of the 20% reduction on the customer machine utilization is actually it proves the fact that customers are not using the machines with high intensity right now. So it means that our customers' business is lower than it was 2 years ago. We don't expect that to continue forever. For surely, at some point of time, their machine use rates will go up. That means immediately higher aftermarket sales and then the machines start to wear down and they need to be replaced as well. So it means more replacement of machines. So kind of traditionally, our business has been cyclical on the equipment side, and it is right now a low cycle. So surely, there is some of a level of bounce back.

So does this mean that the optimism is kind of based on, let's say, Germany's infrastructure bill and something similar in the U.S. and that will filter through? That is kind of the reason to the optimist.

Yes. And that's where we base our optimism for the overall market growth. We have already seen the impact of those things. Nothing basically in the Germany as such because these are political decisions, but they play a role. They create the confidence for the surrounding markets like this in case the Europe. So after that announcement from Germany, okay, there was some more unified leadership shown from the European leaders as well. That might be the confidence factor. After those events, the Europe market for the capital equipment, which was completely almost dead for 2 years, started to pick up and normalize after those ones. So -- those are the elements that are needed. And whole world is having all of those elements because not only is the aggregate business cyclical, it's also very regional. So the drivers are always regional, like China has own drivers and then African has own drivers and so forth.

Maybe just to give a little bit of background still on that. So for example, in Scandinavia, Nordic countries, in 2022, when the war started in Ukraine, our equipment business went down by 80%. And that's not normal level. So at some level -- some point of time, it will bounce back.

Exactly.

And is there an element of replacement age? I don't know how many years these machines last? I mean...

Yes, of course, that varies heavily that how well they are maintained and how many hours there has been clocked in. But definitely, yes. And when there has been this kind of situation that in Nordic countries, new equipment sales dropped by 80%, it doesn't mean that there would be no aggregate production happening in these countries. They are done for the old equipment. And of course, it increases the need in some point to make the replacement investment for the capital equipment. That's what we see as a bounce back.

Okay. So then moving over to the Minerals side. It's the same kind of discussion. So there are many special reasons. So if we start with Argentina, where you have the original there. So the deadline to start is July next year, it can be postponed 1 year. But when would you order the equipment for -- if you decide to go ahead according to the ready bill by July next year?

Yes. It's not really if we decide to go ahead, it's our customers who need to make a decision to go ahead. And these projects are serious projects. They have organization. They have appointed CEOs for the new companies that have been established in Argentina. So everything is there predicting that 2026, things start to move when it comes to the equipment orders as well. And now we also need to think very carefully how the world will look after October. I think now it's the midterm elections in Argentina, and it will pave a little bit of road of the confidence. But all in all, those projects, they look to be very serious and customers are developing them.

And your type of equipment is kind of among the first that you would order then. Is that right? I mean -- it takes many years to build a mine, so.

Yes, it takes several years. So if you think that these deposits are located in the mountains of Andes, 3,000, 4,000 meters above the sea level. There is currently no roads. There is currently no infrastructure at all. So I think the first orders will come from the aggregate side of Metso that somebody needs to build first infrastructure to get something there and then start the buildup of actual mining site. Our minerals processing equipment is the heart and soul of the mining site. Without those, you are not able to produce anything. But are they going to be the first ones that start to get the orders? No. But then on the other hand, they have quite a long lead time. So that's also something that the customers in question need to keep in mind that in which point they start to release these orders.

And just otherwise, is it -- the optimism is mainly in gold and copper. I mean, do you want to highlight some new things, some areas? What countries are most promising at the moment?

I think you mentioned already the Argentina. But then we have the traditional countries where we are already today [indiscernible], Chile is going to be growing. U.S. has -- thanks to President Trump, there are 20 mining sites that are declared critical for the country. So they are promised fast tracking in all kind of permitting and so on. I don't think that the geographies as such are so important. I think the commodity demand is driving more at the moment and the commodity demand in the future. And that's where the gold right now, as Piia was explaining, they move really fast through our funnel. Customers want to get as soon as possible, the benefit of close to 4,000 spot price. Copper is seen as the metal that will be having not enough production in the future. Expectation most likely that the price levels will be increasing even more, and that will be very beneficial. So the race for the copper is ongoing in that sense. Iron ore, which is very important for us. It's 15%, 16% of our business, heavily driven by the steel demand, and that is a little bit of -- we don't see that that's going to be booming like it had in sometimes in the past decade or 2, but there is going to be a constant demand so that that's going to be a good generation of good business for us, especially from the aftermarket point of view where we are already present. Then from the market point of view, I think the other battery metals than copper. Copper is one of the battery metals, but it has so many other drivers as well. Right now, we don't see in the close term that there is a super need of increasing the capacity, lithium, nickel, both of them have quite a low price point at the moment, and there is capacity in the world, even more coming online. So these 2, we don't expect to see massive amount of new orders in the '26.

Antti Kansanen, SEB. I have a question on the Minerals 20% margin target, which obviously is not a new target and kind of the road there, the growth actions and self-help. I mean 2028 is not far away, given your lead times lot of the actions have to be done already in '27 for them to be visible. So I wanted to better understand on the timing of it. Which of the things that we've been discussing today are something that you're actually quite far ahead already that the building blocks have been placed already during the previous strategy period. And which are the ones that have the biggest urgency now to get done in the next 1 to 2 years? And a little bit of a cadence, how we're going to see the margin improvement filtering through.

So obviously, one big driver is the aftermarket. And there, the lead times are shorter. So orders in '27 and all still at the beginning of '28 will yield the results for the '28 numbers. And then the capital equipment side, so rightly said, Antti that we have already done quite a lot of things. And for example, the deliveries that are currently in the backlog to be delivered in '26, for example. So we know that they are derisked with how Metso when Metso Outotec was created, started to look for the capital projects as well. And then we have all the self-help opportunities that as you saw and if you looked what was the size of that bar, so that was quite significant. And they don't take a decade to run them through because we know what they are and how to get the benefit out of those. So in that sense, it's not maybe a new target. It's official target now, and that means that we have also done all the work how to get there, the bridge point of view.

Just to complement that something that has been done during the previous strategy period is to expand, for example, the service network. So there is quite a few initiatives and some of them are coming to an end now, providing us an opportunity to continue to leverage on those. Digitalization is the same. We -- as Piia and Heikki discussed, we see a clear step change in that, and it will yield opportunities now in the early part of the coming strategic period.

I mean historically, in previous years, we've been talking more about kind of modularization and less customization and maybe also on the supply chain. Is it now more about being more commercial? I mean you're more selective on things that you want to push and maybe less end-to-end thinking and more kind of product leadership thinking? Or am I thinking it wrong?

Yes, maybe not so black and white. So there's much more of that commercial side now and focused roads that we are going to be walking now with certain investments and then making the results from there. But we are not giving away anything that was still in undone category from the supply chain point of view or productization of the standardization of the products. So we have so good examples from the aggregate side that what is the power of that. So that work needs to be finished in the minerals side as well.

Christian Hinderaker from Goldman again. Can I ask a question about pumps, Obviously, an area where you're third or fourth currently. Could you just flesh out a little bit more what it is you're seeking to do to expand that share position? Is it about price? Is it about proposition? Is it about go-to-market? I'll start there.

Thank you. Saso?

Well, if you're wondering pumps in the consumables, BA, that's why I took the microphone. Maybe to state a few facts first. We already have a very serious wide range of pumps, which are directly focused on the grinding circuit, which is also where the biggest impact to our customers is when we speak about pumps. So what we're going to do more or what we're going to do different? We have been now investing close to 5 years, quite a lot of resources into bringing that portfolio, renewing it and bringing it to scale, including the footprint, which is already built. In a few of the slides, you have read about regional presence and regional support. Actually, in all main minerals relevant regions, we already have the local footprint, which does provide the product next door to the customer. The next step is to really engage into the performance contracts and to really get the customer through our service network to really exchange other suppliers' pumps on the basis of value proposition. And I think we have everything we need to do that.

If I summarize that, now the pumps, it's been discussed with you as well in the past. What is different now is a fully holistic view and understanding that what has not been successful in the past and what is not going to be the case Saso is under Saso's business area. And like one of the findings, for example, was that, yes, we have the pumps, but we didn't have the so-called full portfolio. So we have now filled that one so that we are really capable of serving the customers with the needs, not only the pump and the spare part needed for there. And now it's in that famous middle basket, meaning that the mindset is really to go after that mandate is to go after that. And Saso has been acting today really calmly. But inside the company, everybody knows that pumps is the way we go now, and we will go and win this race. So in that sense, that's the difference for the past.

Can I ask maybe a follow-up on the working capital side. I guess as we think about that ratio where maybe we're not going to get a target level, -- how do we think about the numbers for aggregates versus Minerals? And I guess just if we're forecasting growth, I'm just curious what we should expect, how we frame our modeling in essence, -- anything you can help with would be great.

Yes. I think we need to start from the fact that the business models are very different. So in aggregates, we have in-house manufacturing factories, et cetera, and all the working capital around that. Whereas then in Minerals capital, we have very limited in-house activities. We work with our supply chain. We work also with our customers with prepayments, prepayments to suppliers and so forth. And while we target to grow in both areas, of course, the absolute numbers if and when we are able to grow, so that will tie more working capital. But then the relative performance should go down. I don't think I can give you an exact sort of split how it will happen between the segments, but it's a focus area for both, and we are driving efficiency improvements there.

Two questions on profitability targets, if I may. First one on the aggregates. 17% margin, you've been there before in early 2010 during the period, as you described, a very favorable pricing. Do you need the same favorable pricing again or we -- actually will need just a small improvement in pricing and other self-help measures will contribute as well.

No. I mean, we don't need the same pricing environment to reach our target. Of course, if we get there, it helps a lot, but we are confident that with the market growth, where pricing is a small element, then our own actions and self-help, we can drive aggregates to 17% and beyond.

Excellent. And a broader question on the 18% target for the group. How do you see the progress towards this target through the coming years? Is it more or less continuous even steps as they have obviously a lot of measures in action or not?

Yes, that's a tricky one because we don't know exactly what will happen during the coming years. I think optimal would be -- and we are driving towards step-by-step improvement in the margin. But that's, of course, conditional on the marketplace, what's happening there. And I think the history also that I had as part of my presentation shows that during the time we've been able to grow the company, we have been also able to more significantly improve the margins. So those go hand by hand and optimal would be a more stable journey, but let's see how the journey from here to 28% and towards 18% will be.

Could I just ask you, in Q2, we had this extra cost for the ERP system. Could you just update us on whether this is all water under the bridge and what potential benefits you might have from this investment?

Yes. First of all, I mean, ERP cost, indeed, we had second quarter some EUR 10 million of extra costs from there. They are not repeating. We have moved forward with the implementation as such. There is one more phase to go. So we have roughly 20% of our business that will go live with the new ERP now during the fourth quarter. And then a couple of South American countries very early next year, all good with that, not foreseeing extra costs. Then I think it's a significant part, and it was Heikki talking about it, significant part of our self-help opportunity to streamline the processes -- just to remind us that this is the last material step from the merger and synergies, replacing 2 aging legacy systems with one modern platform, all the opportunities that it brings. Internally has been, of course, a lot of efforts to drive this forward and many people are sort of waiting that we get the implementation done. We will take a few more months. From my point of view and from our point of view, then only the real work starts. This is an investment for the coming decade at minimum and will help us to drive process efficiencies, for example, in finance, but then also in many other areas will help us to use data more efficiently, deploy AI robotic solutions to drive the automation, et cetera. So it's a significant opportunity for us, and it fits well with our also 2028 horizon. During that horizon, we will see benefits realizing from the investment.

Big portion of the work when you are implementing the new ERP is that you really go through your data. You need to have cleansed data that goes into the new system. And what you heard from Jaakko today and also from the minerals when it comes to digital capabilities, so that clean data that we have now this year because of the implementation, that is going to be the benefit for us going forward that we have a very good foundation to build all kind of AI-powered solutions to our own needs and what the customer needs.

And in addition to the extra EUR 10 million, would you care to estimate how much it has cost over the past 1.5 years in terms of P&L impact?

Yes. I mean we are not disclosing the number as such. But what I can say is that it has been a material effort. Direct costs, a big part of the extra cost we had in the second quarter was external supporting us to get going with the main phase. And it has not been only past year or so. It has been a multiyear journey first, design, build and then go forward. And part of the cost has also been capitalized. So sort of designing, building part, we are capitalizing and the other parts we are putting through P&L. And you are right that going from '25 to '26, we will see a bit of P&L relief because those costs that we have had this year will not repeat next year.

I'll take one from the chat because this is about smelting. So one smelting question is -- more than appropriate. If the U.S. invest in more copper mines, who will smelt this copper because they hardly ship it to China to be smelted.

This is very good, and it's very interesting, these dynamics with the smelting business. Many of the smelting operations today are on red numbers or bleeding. From our perspective, the smelting is a good business for Metso. But there are several customers actually who are in a discussion with us at the moment to build the smelting capacity. They come from interesting countries, if I put it this way. And when asked that where are you going to get the copper concentrate, they are highlighting the fact that they are in a logistic perfect place for several of the copper mines to be the one who actually smelts. So this is interesting business model that is building at the moment very much. Specific question about the U.S., excellent question. I don't think that they will ship it to China, but we will see how the whole smelting industry will be developing now.

Another quick one from Ed Hussey. You talked about your strengths being -- having a broad product offering that allows you to optimize customer flow sheets. Is this more relevant in greenfield cases? Or has there been kind of success in capturing also kind of brownfield share when it comes to flow sheet optimization?

I think there is a lot of benefits coming from the fact that, as I said, where Epiroc stops, we start and we have the full flow sheet with different options even inside. So that gives, first of all, us the competitive advantage as a company because we do know how the process flows. So it's a competitive advantage for the aftermarket support for optimizing and then a specific part of the flow sheet when that's in the question of either upgrading or building a second line, for example, this full portfolio gives us a lot of benefits from the perspective of the expertise.

Good stuff. There are questions. Will Mackie.

I'll have another go at aggregates, if I may. If I go back to '23, the volume was at record levels. The distributors were stocking alongside the price comment earlier, and you just made your 17%. I think we've heard over the last few quarters that you brought back capacity into Finland in production. We've had an on-off discussion about distributor stock levels. And you've shown us today that utilization rates on the machines are still 20% of perhaps where they could be. So I mean, how should you -- how would you characterize the pace or cadence of the recovery? Where are you? Where are you investing? And when we come to the markets that you're serving, where are they versus the peak level? Are we down 20%, 30%? We heard a brief comment there about 80%, but...

Again, Markku can continue, but '23 and now I need to think about the U.S. market because the regionalization means that you need a little bit focus on one market only. So the U.S. market was hot, as you said. So there was good sales to the end customers. The distributors were also then ordering replenishment machines. 2024 came as a little bit surprise that it slowed down. The end customers didn't buy the machines anymore. They did rent them for a long time. And that year created a situation that the distributor stocks, Metso distributors and most likely the other brands available as well. They went up and they stayed up throughout the whole year of '24 because of very low sales to the end customers. The normalization started in U.S. already in December. So after the presidential election was clear. So then we started to see that the distribution stock levels gradually started to decline. So they were again able to sell to the end customers. So I would call it more like a normalization of the market as such in U.S. And what is then the expectation for the future? We stay optimistic that this 4% global growth will be happening. Is it coming from the U.S.? Is it coming from Europe? This is a little bit that -- it's a benefit that Metso is actually truly global in the aggregate as Markku and Saso were showing the chart that where are we in a good position already. The regional cycles, they happen very quickly to both directions. So they can go down in 1, 2 months, and then they can come back after a few months of slowdown very quickly as well.

Very well said. Maybe a couple of things to add that if we look at our quarry market, it's the quarry market is not actually at a low point at this point of time, but then the contractor market is on a low point. And we can see that also from our kind of major competitors that are strong in the mobile equipment, their sales tend to be relatively low as well at current levels. Then the competitors that would be big in the quarry side of the market, their sales is maybe dropping not quite as much as the contractor side of the business. So we -- and also, we've been kind of studying our competitors and their backyards and their backyards were equally full of machines as our backyards were some time ago and everybody's backyards tend to be a little bit lower right now than they were a few months ago.

Thanks very much. We are close to a quarter past 6 when it's time to wrap up our webcast. But before we go, maybe, Sami, a couple of closing remarks.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the relevant questions. It's very nice to work with the investors who actually understand our business and ask this type of questions. It gives pleasure also on this side of the table. We have today gone through and opened up what our -- we go Beyond strategy has inside. We have gone through what it means for the aggregate, what it means for the minerals. We have discussed about our financial targets and then even a couple of deep dives for interesting areas where we truly have in the future competitive advantage. And with that, remembering that our focus areas are to grow both top line and especially continue to journey in the bottom line to be excellent with our customers and all is boiling down for Metso to be #1 out there. And Metso is continuing to be the #1 investment also for the shareholders.

All right. Thank you, Sami. This concludes our webcast. Thanks so much for participating online. Thanks for asking questions. Hope you enjoyed and we see you next time.

Thank you.