By Louis van Boxel-Woolf and Bartosz Dabrowski
(Reuters) -Swiss lift and escalator maker Schindler reported a slight decline in second-quarter order intake on Friday, as China’s construction market slowdown weighs on new installations.
Its order intake was 2.98 billion Swiss francs ($3.35 billion) in the second quarter, down 0.4% from a year earlier in local currencies and just ahead of analysts’ forecast of 2.95 billion francs in a Vara consensus.
The volume of new installations in China fell between 5% and 10% in the period compared to last year, Schindler said.
Chinese construction starts fell by nearly 24% in the first half of 2024, signalling further tough conditions for the installation businesses of companies like Schindler and its Finnish rival Kone.
Schindler’s service and modernisation businesses, which focus on maintenance and renovations, grew in the second quarter, it said.
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It also warned that new installations in the Asia-Pacific region without China, which includes India, would be worse than expected.
Urbanising India is a key growth market for lift makers. Growing sales in India and Southeast Asia have helped Kone offset some of the weakness in China.
New installations in the Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) should do better than Schindler had forecast, it said.
Schindler confirmed its outlook for the year, but broke with its usual habit of providing a net profit guidance.
($1 = 0.8889 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Louis van Boxel-Woolf and Bartosz Dabrowski in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi)
