Tieto's Half-year Report 2026: Strong profitability demonstrates resilience in a weak market

Tieto CorporationHALF-YEAR REPORT 22 July 20269:00 a.m. (EEST)

• Organic growth of -5%, mainly reflecting weaker consulting market demand
• Adjusted EBITA improved by 5.5 pp. to 14.9%, driven primarily by the cost optimization programme, with profitability improving across all businesses
• Transformation and reinvention of Tech Consulting accelerating through competence shift and AI upskilling
• Edlevo and HR & Payroll divestment completed – new EUR 90 million share buyback programme launched
• Full-year growth outlook updated on 17 July to reflect weaker market conditions

The full interim report with tables is available at the end of this release.

Full-year outlook for 2026 updated on 17 July

Tieto expects its organic1) growth to be in the range of -5% to -3% (revenue in 2025: EUR 1 852.3 million). The company estimates its full-year adjusted operating margin2) (adjusted EBITA3)) to be 14.8–15.8% (13.8% in 2025).

1) Adjusted for currency effects, acquisitions and divestments
2) Adjustment items include restructuring costs, capital gains/losses, impairment charges and other items affecting comparability
3) Profit before interests, taxes, amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, goodwill and other intangible asset impairment
4) Company estimate
5) Comparative information includes cash flow from divestments

CEO comment by Endre Rangnes

Building a stronger company in a weaker market

"Tieto's second quarter demonstrated two realities. Market conditions deteriorated further, particularly in technology consulting, resulting in revenue development below both our own and market expectations. At the same time, our profitability was very strong, confirming that the decisive actions we have taken over the past year are delivering tangible and sustainable results.

The continued improvement in profitability demonstrates that Tieto today is a more resilient company. During the past year, we have fundamentally reshaped our cost base, simplified the organization and enhanced execution across the Group. Those actions are now visible in our performance. Even as demand weakened during the quarter, profitability continued to improve in all of our businesses. While we are clearly not satisfied with our growth, the quarter reinforces our confidence that we are moving in the right direction. This remains a year of transition and execution for Tieto, with our priority firmly on strengthening competitiveness and building the foundation for sustainable growth in the years ahead.

During the second quarter, growth in our software businesses was still affected by the previously communicated legacy contract headwinds in Banktech and Caretech. In addition, softer market conditions impacted parts of our Indtech and Banktech businesses. We continue to expect growth to pick up across our software portfolio towards the end of the year as these headwinds gradually subside and the underlying business strengthens.

In Tech Consulting, increased geopolitical uncertainty, including the escalation of tensions in the Middle East during the spring, contributed to customers postponing investment decisions and transformation programmes. As a result, growth in our consulting business was below expectations. Together with softer growth in parts of our software portfolio in the second quarter, this has led us to update our full-year growth outlook.

While the near-term outlook remains muted, we continue to focus on executing the actions within our own control. Transforming Tech Consulting remains one of our highest priorities. At our Capital Markets Day last autumn, we outlined our ambition to build a more customer-centric business with a stronger service mix and a more competitive operating model. Under the renewed leadership, we have accelerated the execution of this transformation. As part of the large-scale AI upskilling programme announced earlier this year, covering around 5 000 people, we continue to reshape our competence base to better reflect future customer demand. This includes strengthening capabilities in AI, cloud, data and enterprise applications while continuously adapting our workforce to support the next phase of the transformation. This work will continue during the second half of the year.

Beyond the current market cycle, artificial intelligence is entering a new phase. As AI adoption matures, the source of competitive advantage is evolving. The next phase of AI will not be defined simply by access to foundation models, but by trusted software, deep domain expertise and business-critical workflows. We believe this plays directly to Tieto's strengths. Across our software businesses, we continue to embed AI into mission-critical products and customer workflows, while Tech Consulting helps customers accelerate AI adoption by combining AI with cloud, data and software engineering capabilities. At the same time, we continue to invest significantly in our own people through large-scale AI reskilling and our strategic partnership with Microsoft, ensuring that we have the capabilities needed to support customers throughout this transformation.

The coming quarters will require continued discipline and execution. The actions we are taking today – strengthening profitability, transforming our business and investing in future capabilities – are building a stronger foundation for long-term growth. That gives me confidence that Tieto is becoming a stronger company, well positioned for the opportunities ahead."
 

Financial performance by segment

For further information, please contact:

Tomi Hyryläinen, Chief Financial Officer, tel. +358 50 555 0363, tomi.hyrylainen (at) tieto.com

Tommi Järvenpää, Head of Investor Relations, tel. +358 40 576 0288, tommi.jarvenpaa (at) tieto.com

A webcast for analysts and media will be held on 22 July at 10.00 a.m. EEST (9.00 a.m. CET, 8.00 a.m. UK time). Endre Rangnes, President and CEO, and Tomi Hyryläinen, CFO, will present the results online in English. The live webcast can be followed via this link: Tieto Q2 webcast or on the company's website.

To take part in the questions and answers session after the presentation you will need to dial in by phone. You can access the webcast by registering on this link. After the registration you will be provided phone numbers, user ID and a conference ID to access the conference.

The event is recorded and it will be available on demand later during the day. Tieto publishes its financial information in English and Finnish.

Tieto Corporation

DISTRIBUTION
Nasdaq Helsinki
Nasdaq Stockholm
Principal Media

Tieto is a leading software and digital engineering services company with global market reach and capabilities. We provide customers across different industries with mission-critical solutions through our specialized software businesses Tieto Caretech, Tieto Banktech and Tieto Indtech as well as Tieto Tech Consulting business. Our around 13 000 talented vertical software, design, cloud and AI experts are dedicated to empowering our customers to succeed and innovate with latest technology.

Tieto’s annual revenue is approximately EUR 2 billion. The company’s shares are traded on the NASDAQ exchange in Helsinki and Stockholm. www.tieto.com

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