SAF-Holland SE has made a solid start to the 2025 fiscal year, despite Group sales being down on 2024 figures.
Group sales for Q1 2025 decreased by 11.1 per cent to €449.2 million, compared to the previous year’s level of €505.4 million.
The company noted the reduction was due to weak customer demand in the Original Equipment segment.
While there was a drop in sales, SAF-Holland confirmed its outlook for the 2025 fiscal year, with its adjusted EBIT margin of 9.5 per cent, almost at the previous year’s level of 9.6 per cent.
SAF-Holland SE Management Board Chairman and CEO, Alexander Geis, said: “Thanks to the resilience of our business model, we have made a solid start to the new fiscal year.
“We are confident that we will successfully overcome the operational challenges arising in particular from changes in trade policy and achieve our targets for the year.”
The company’s adjusted EBIT fell by 12.1 per cent to €42.7 million in Q1 2025, due to lower sales.
The share of sales from the less cyclical aftermarket business reached 37.8 per cent in the first quarter, compared to 35.1 per cent in the corresponding period last year.
The sales contribution of the Original Equipment Trailer customer segment fell by 14.8 per cent to €220.7 million, which represents 49.1 per cent of Group sales. In Q1 2024 the figure was €259 million (51.3 per cent).
The company also noted that the sales contribution of the Original Equipment Trucks customer segment fell by 14.5 per cent to €58.9 million (2024: €68.9 million), mainly due to the Americas region.
In contrast, the more cyclically resilient aftermarket business recorded only a slight sales decline of 4.4 per cent to €169.6 million. The previous year’s sales were €177.5 million.
As a result, the corresponding share of sales improved from 35.1 per cent to 37.8 per cent.
With a Group tax rate of 35.1 per cent (previous year: 28.8 per cent), SAF-Holland generated a result of €13.4 million in the first quarter 2025 (previous year: €26.5 million).
In addition to the lower operating result, the significant deviation from Q12024 is due to a higher foreign currency burden in the financial result.
Based on an unchanged number of shares compared to the previous year of 45.4 million, earnings per share for the first quarter of 2025 amounted to €0.29 (2024: €0.58).
For SAF-Holland’s 2025 outlook, the Management Board continued to expect Group sales for the remainder of the year to be in the range of €1,850 million to €2,000 million, as was published on 20 March 2025.
The company noted it was well positioned to react promptly and effectively to negative influences from global trade policy, due to its broad-based production network in North America (Canada, USA and Mexico) and its strong market positions.
Based on this reasoning, SAF-Holland continues to expect to achieve an adjusted EBIT margin of 9-10 per cent in 2025 (previous year: 10.1 per cent).
The forecast for the capex ratio also remains unchanged and amounts to up to 3 per cent of Group sales (2024: 3.1 per cent).
Read about SAF-Holland’s business expansions.
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