Dialogue with analysts
Twenty-five analysts cover Sandvik on a continuous basis. Below are some of the most frequent questions discussed in 2024, and our answers.
Q: Demand has been mixed throughout the year, could you walk us through the demand in key regions and customer segments?
A: 2024 was a challenging year, with geopolitical and macroeconomic instability – and as a result we have seen weakened demand in key segments. Lower industrial activity and specific challenges in Europe and automotive impacted the demand for our cutting tools negatively. We also had a tough year for infrastructure, although with a more positive sentiment at the end of the year. The mining side was more stable. High metal prices drove high activity in the mines and led to a strong momentum in our parts, services and consumables business. Overall, we saw good momentum for our software solutions, despite a tougher macro-economic environment.
Q: In April, Sandvik acquired a majority stake in the Chinese company Suzhou Ahno, could you elaborate on that?
A: With the acquisition of Suzhou Ahno, we have established an important position in the local premium segment in China. The company has a leading position in precision cutting tools, with a broad product- and service offering and extensive sales, distribution and production footprint. Ahno’s competitive assortment and closeness to customers is a great platform to drive further growth of our tooling business in the region, and much of the offering is focused on fast-growing segments, like electric vehicles and medical, which makes Ahno a perfect fit with our strategy. It also enhances our local production capabilities, making it a great addition to Sandvik.
Q: You also strengthened your automation offering with the acquisition of Universal Field Robots, what value does it bring to Sandvik?
A: Universal Field Robots (UFR) is a fast-growing Australia-based provider of autonomous interoperable solutions for the surface mining and underground mining markets. Its solutions portfolio is built on a common autonomy platform, which is a strong complement to our own automation offering and includes OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) agnostic robotic and autonomous solutions for trucks, loaders and auxiliary equipment. The acquisition will help increase the addressable market for Sandvik and further strengthen the market position of AutoMine® – our world-leading mining automation platform. Adding to the platform’s existing capabilities to integrate third-party equipment, UFR will significantly expand the number of compatible third-party equipment types, providing customers with flexible opportunities to optimize the performance of their full mining equipment fleets. UFR is an important strategic addition to Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions that will strengthen the growth potential and provide key capabilities in the development of our mining automation solutions portfolio going forward.
Q: Sandvik promotes end-to-end optimization and automation in the component manufacturing value chain. What does that mean and how far are you in that work?
A: Our vision is to enable fully interconnected manufacturing operations using digital threads. Today, Sandvik provides solutions that connect important parts of the operation by integrating products to create more seamless solutions for our customers, where data from one solution is used to increase productivity for the other. One example are the integrations of the Sandvik Coromant tool library in our various CAM products, where the programmer will get direct access to the right product data in the CAM environment when programming a machining process. We will continue to build on that, adding to the scope we cover step by step, directed by customer value and feasibility. And, because we intimately understand our customer’s operations, we can package, sell and deliver our solutions in ways that for the customer are simple to implement and realize the benefits from.
Our recent product releases in CAM and in industrial metrology include numerous improvements for automation, more seamless use of integrated solutions, and improved user interfaces. It proves we are on the right track, and we have many interesting developments in the pipeline.