The Hamburg forklift manufacturer Jungheinrich recorded a slight decline in sales and profit in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. EBIT fell from 120.1 million euros in the previous year to now 101.5 million euros and was thus below market expectations of 106 million euros. The EBIT margin correspondingly decreased from 9.3 percent to 8.0 percent. Sales slightly dropped to 1.274 billion euros compared with 1.291 billion euros in the same quarter of the previous year and missed the analysts' forecasts of 1.309 billion euros.

Despite the challenging market environment, Jungheinrich was able to record a slight increase in incoming orders to 1.363 billion euros, supported by a robust customer service business and positive developments in the financial services sector. However, the after-tax result decreased to 67.9 million euros, compared with 88.4 million euros in the previous year, thus also falling short of expectations.

Despite these challenges, Jungheinrich confirmed its forecast for the full year, with an expected order intake between 5.2 and 5.8 billion euros and a group turnover of 5.3 to 5.9 billion euros. EBIT is expected to range between 420 and 470 million euros, with an EBIT margin of 7.6 to 8.4 percent.

The Jungheinrich stock temporarily fell by 5.52 percent in XETRA trading and was listed at 33.86 euros. Analyst Philippe Lorrain from Bernstein Research evaluated the results as solid and confirmed the "Outperform" rating with a target price of 46 euros, despite slightly missing market expectations. Lorrain emphasized that the quarterly report is in line with the confirmed annual targets and that the measures to secure results are already showing effect.