Sales in the third quarter in local currencies and excluding structure increased by 1% in Europe, by 9% in Latin America, by 5% in Asia and by 8% in Middle East and Africa. In North America they decreased by 2%.
“Our cash flow was good in the quarter,” said Tom Johnstone, SKF president and CEO. “We continued to improve our operating margin sequentially despite the negative mix and a stronger than expected currency headwind. This shows that the actions which we are taking to improve our product portfolio, invest in our business and reduce costs are giving results."
Sales in the quarter developed well within SKF's automotive business, but were somewhat lower than expected in its industrial business, Johnstone noted. "Within industrial we see a positive development in our aerospace, renewable energy and railway businesses," he added. " However, we see some lack of traction in a number of other industrial markets – not getting worse but not getting better yet, either. The automotive business benefitted from an improved demand and better mix of sales particularly within trucks and the vehicle service market. This, combined with the steps we are taking, positively helped their margin."