German steel maker ThyssenKrupp, revealed that its markets would be sluggish to recover from last year's slump after it pared back costs and nudged through price hikes to record its first profit in four quarters.

The steel maker on Friday posted a 2% fall in fiscal first-quarter profit to 237 million Euros ($324 million) from a year-ago 249 million, surpassing an average analyst speculations of 56 million in a Reuters poll.

ThyssenKrupp's shares witnessed a 4 percent rise, however, it warned that, with the fragile global economic recovery, its customers were still buying mainly to restock inventory rather than in response to rising demand.

ThyssenKrupp said on Friday that underlying pretax profit in its first quarter fell to 237 million Euros ($324 million) from a year-ago 249 million, easily beating an average analyst forecast of 56 million in a Reuters poll.

"In Europe, the NAFTA region and Japan, demand will be higher than in 2009 mainly due to restocking, but there will not yet be any return to the production and demand levels of previous years", the company revealed.

ThyssenKrupp, which incurred 62 percent of revenues in the Eurozone, posted the European carbon steel flat-rolled market took a turn for the better from the autumn of 2009.