Daimler Truck's Profit Jumped 73%, but an Order Miss Sank the Shares

Daimler Truck's third-quarter profit rose 73% on a North American rebound, but its shares fell after new orders missed forecasts and its finance chief cooled hopes for next year's margins.

The truckmaker reported adjusted operating profit of €1.12 billion for the quarter ended September 30. That was up 73% from €648 million a year earlier and slightly above the €1.10 billion forecast in a company-compiled consensus, Reuters reported.

Group revenue rose 19% to €12.58 billion. Revenue at the industrial business — trucks and buses, excluding the financing arm — rose 20% to €11.64 billion.

North America did the heavy lifting

Trucks North America, the largest division, sold 45,629 vehicles, up 51% from a tariff-depressed quarter a year earlier. Its revenue rose 43% to €5.7 billion.

The unit's adjusted operating profit jumped 169% to €691 million. Its adjusted margin widened to 12.1% from 6.4%.

Part of that margin was a refund, not a sale. The interim report says tariff-reimbursement claims cut the unit's cost of sales by a low three-digit million-euro amount, after Washington recognized the U.S. content in its trucks.

“Our third-quarter performance demonstrates that we are continuing to build momentum across the business,” chief executive Karin Rådström said. She added that the company achieved stronger profitability while staying focused on customers.

Orders rose, and still disappointed

Group order intake rose 10% from a year earlier to 71,168 vehicles. Orders at Trucks North America rose 12% to 29,357.

Measured against what analysts expected, though, the book fell short. Reuters reported that order intake missed Visible Alpha consensus expectations by 9% at group level, including a 16% shortfall in North America, the company's biggest market by revenue.

The two comparisons answer different questions. Last year's orders were depressed by weak freight demand and tariff uncertainty, while this year's forecast assumed the recovery would run hotter than it did.

The shares, and the 2027 argument

Shares fell as much as 8.3% in early trading in Frankfurt, Reuters reported, and were down around 2% by 09:37 GMT. By early afternoon they traded at €40.27, down 3.9% from Thursday's €41.91 close, according to a Finnhub snapshot of the still-open session.

Analysts pressed finance chief Eva Scherer on what North America's margin looks like once the rebound normalizes. “I still expect a double-digit run rate around 10% operationally as we enter next year,” she told analysts.

Scherer stressed that the figure is the rate at which the business exits 2026, not guidance for 2027. Bernstein analyst Harry Martin said that exit rate “would leave a lot of growth needed next year to hit consensus numbers of 11.5%,” Reuters reported.

Europe steadier, buses softer, cash strong

Mercedes-Benz Trucks raised revenue 10% to €5.36 billion and adjusted operating profit 6% to €337 million. Its adjusted margin edged down to 6.3% from 6.5%.

Daimler Buses sold 16% fewer vehicles, and its adjusted operating profit fell 10% to €123 million, though its 9.2% adjusted margin stayed near the top of the group. Financial Services lifted adjusted operating profit 29% to €62 million.

Earnings per share rose to €0.91 from €0.51. Free cash flow at the industrial business reached €974 million, up from €24 million, helped by stronger earnings and by about €600 million from selling part of the company's stake in Archion, the Japanese truck venture created from Mitsubishi Fuso and Hino. Daimler Truck now holds 25% of Archion.

The quarter was an inflection, not yet a trend. Across the first nine months, adjusted operating profit is still down 10% at €2.46 billion, even as nine-month orders rose 30% to 259,659 vehicles.

Confirmed guidance, raised earlier this year

Daimler Truck confirmed its full-year outlook: group adjusted operating profit of €3.6 billion to €4.1 billion, industrial revenue of €43 billion to €47 billion, and an industrial adjusted margin of 7% to 9%.

It expects industrial free cash flow of €3.0 billion to €3.5 billion and group unit sales of 340,000 to 370,000 vehicles. Those ranges were raised with the second-quarter results in August; Friday's release changed none of them.

Rådström called the 2027 outlook for the truck market “quite positive” and said demand had improved throughout the year despite elevated inflation, interest rates and diesel prices, Reuters reported.

What remains unknown

Whether North America's order intake closes the gap to forecasts in the fourth quarter is untested. Orders are the backlog that decides 2027 production, and Friday's miss is one quarter, not yet a pattern.

How much of North America's 12.1% margin survives without tariff reimbursements is also unclear. The company says it enters the final quarter with a full production program, focused on mitigating supply bottlenecks and delivering trucks and buses to customers.

What to watch: Friday's Frankfurt close, which settles the first verdict on the print, and fourth-quarter orders — the first hard test of whether the recovery, or the miss, was the story.