Demand for equipment maintenance showed a healthy growth in 2014, as miners took up more maintenance work after putting it off for more than a year following a sharp decline of coal prices.

In the second quarter of the 2014 financial year, Joy saw an 8% increase in service and maintenance orders, more than a third of which were from coal miners.

Overall, maintenance made up nearly two-thirds of the company’s orders.

The total value of orders fell 7% to $1.05 billion ($A1.12 billion) from a year earlier but were up 22% from the first quarter.

Despite signs Joy’s profits were stabilising, the company remained cautious looking ahead.

"While improving economic conditions should drive increased demand, commodities remain oversupplied, with prices in some cases at multi-year lows that continue to delay capital decisions," the company said.

The company maintained its forecast of earnings at $3.10-3.50 per share on revenue of $3.6-3.8 billion in the year ending in October.

Q2 net income fell to $74 million from $181.6 million, or 73c per share from $1.69 per share in FY2013.

Analysts were expecting earnings of 71c per share on revenue of $932.1 million, according to Thomson Reuters.