STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish industrial group Atlas Copco reported on Thursday a fall in third-quarter profit that was slightly smaller than expected and predicted customer activity would remain at the current level in the short term.
Operating profit before items affecting comparability was 8.86 billion crowns ($941 million) against a year-earlier 9.44 billion on a 3% sales drop. Analysts polled by LSEG had on average forecast a profit of 8.68 billion crowns.
Order intake fell 4% to 40.5 billion crowns against a forecast 41.0 billion. Excluding acquisitions, the intake was however unchanged.
The company said in a statement demand for its products and services had been mixed in the quarter, but that overall order volumes remained relatively stable compared both to last year and the second quarter.
Atlas Copco, which last year generated roughly a quarter of group revenues in North America, said higher costs related to trade tariffs squeezed profit margins across its divisions.
Shares in the company, which makes a wide range of industrial products from air treatment systems to construction equipment and power tools, were roughly unchanged at 1038 GMT.
(Reporting by Jagoda Darlak in Gdansk and Greta Rosen Fondahn in Stockholm, editing by Anna Ringstrom)
