The group, which is due to brief investors later on Friday on a radical shake-up that will include 10 billion euros ($14 billion) of divestments, is the latest European steelmaker to paint a rosier picture of strong orders since the start of 2011, sending its shares sharply higher.
But it also warned of continued strength in raw material prices and a possible slowdown in China, echoing concerns from rivals over a softer second half of the year.
"Demand in our core markets and key customer sectors generally encouraging," said Chief Executive Heinrich Hiesinger, who is spearheading the overhaul and the spinoff of Thyssen's stainless steel arm less than four months after taking the helm.
"We are profiting from rising volumes and prices in the materials and components business," he added, referring to the group's non-steel activities.
ThyssenKrupp wants to expand some of these engineering activities, which include elevators, bearings and industrial services, in its overhaul, rebalancing a group long criticised for its opaque conglomerate tructure.
The revamp, which will see the group discarding activities that accounted for almost a quarter of its sales last year, will be its most wide-ranging since the 1999 merger of two of Germany's oldest industrial giants.
A person on the company's supervisory board told Reuters late on Thursday that Germany's biggest steelmaker would keep a "considerable" shareholding should it decide to sell part of its stainless steel unit via a share offering.
Thyssen's move in stainless steel follows a similar decision by steel market leader ArcelorMittal, which spun off its own unit Aperam earlier this year, prompting speculation about possible consolidation in a sector that has long suffered from overcapacity and volatility.
ThyssenKrupp's shares have jumped around 10 percent since May 5, when it first outlined the changes. The stock was up 3.7 percent at 33.9 euros by 0858 GMT on Friday.
"We believe you have to know the history of ThyssenKrupp to understand the significance of what is going on, both in terms of the management board changes that have happened, and also in terms of the restructuring that has been announced," analysts at Credit Suisse said in a morning note.
"Current events are very significant indeed in the context of the history of the group and the investment case."
BOOMING CAR SALES
Even though ThyssenKrupp does not have the captive raw material sources which rival ArcelorMittal possesses, it has basked in the glow of strong January-March sales at carmakers, appliance makers and plant machinery producers.
Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen achieved double to triple-digit growth in profits, helped by strong demand from emerging markets. German engineering orders in the quarter rose nearly a third.
ThyssenKrupp said on Friday it was on track to meet its ambitious target to boost adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to around 2 billion euros ($2.84 billion) for its current business year from 1.2 billion a year earlier.
The forecast excludes Steel America, which it estimated would post a "high" three-digit million euro loss in its year to end-September as a result of ramp-up costs of new steel plants.
Steel America's loss widened more than threefold in the first-half to end-March, but healthy profits for carmakers and machine engineers gave ThyssenKrupp enough pricing power to pass on the rising cost of raw materials.
Second-quarter adjusted EBIT for the whole of ThyssenKrupp increased to 497 million euros, while EBITDA rose 50 percent to 932 million, both beating consensus.
Hiesinger said on Friday that while reducing debts is a top priority, "we want to achieve further growth in our highly profitable core businesses".
Analysts believed among the candidates for expansion were elevators and plant engineering businesses. Hiesinger said these two had strong quarterly orders in hand and "high" earnings quality, allowing ThyssenKrupp "to plan with confidence".
Analysts have long been calling for divestments at ThyssenKrupp, a lumbering giant that has piled up debts related to mammoth plants it has built in the United States and Brazil.
Investments and start-up costs of the carbon steel plants in Brazil and Alabama exceeded budgets, forcing ThyssenKrupp to borrow. Its rating was downgrade to junk bond status by Standard & Poor's in 2009.
ThyssenKrupp said on Friday reducing its net financial debt of 6.492 billion euros remained a top priority.