Caterpillar Q1 Earnings Miss Wall Street Estimates, Dragged By Weak Sales, Price Realization

Global economy bellwether Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) reported a fall in revenue and profit during the first quarter, hurt by weak sales and unfavorable price realization.

Sales declined 10% year-over-year (YoY) to $14.2 billion, falling short of a Wall Street estimate of $14.58 billion, according to FinChat data. This was primarily due to lower sales volume of $1.1 billion and unfavorable price realization of $250 million.

The construction and mining equipment manufacturer stated that lower sales volume was mainly driven by the impact of changes in dealer inventories, which increased by $100 million during the first quarter (Q1) of 2025, compared with an increase of $1.4 billion during the first quarter of 2024.

Adjusted profit per share stood at $4.25 compared to an analyst estimate of $4.35.

The firm’s Construction Industries segment experienced a 19% decline in revenue to $5.184 billion, primarily due to lower sales volume of $820 million and unfavorable price realization of $355 million. The segment experienced a decline in sales across all geographies. At the same time, profit declined 42% to $1.024 billion.

The Resource Industries segment experienced a 10% decline in revenues to $2.88 billion, driven by lower sales volume of $179 million, unfavorable price realization of $50 million, and adverse currency impacts of $46 million, primarily related to the Australian dollar. Profit fell 18% to $599 million.

The Energy & Transportation segment saw its total sales fall 2% to $6.568 billion while profit rose 1% to $1.314 billion.

Meanwhile, the Financial Products segment saw a 2% rise in revenues to $1.007 billion, but profit fell 27% to $215 million.

Caterpillar ended Q1 with $3.6 billion of enterprise cash and deployed $3.7 billion of cash for repurchases of its common stock and $0.7 billion of cash for dividends.

Caterpillar shares have declined by 14% in 2025 and 8% in the past 12 months.

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