Hey, good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to El.En.'s Fiscal Year 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call will be recorded. Therefore, there will be an opportunity for question at the end of the conference call. With me on the call are Andrea Cangioli, El.En. CEO, and Enrico Romagnoli, El.En.'s Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relator. Before we begin, please note that there is a remark the management made on the conference call about future expectations, plans and prospects, and forward-looking statements. Certain statements in this call, including those addressing the company's beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates, or expectations of possible future results or events are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known or unknown risks, including the general economic and business conditions and conditions in the industry the company operates, may be affected should assumptions turn out to be inaccurate.
Consequently, no forward-looking statement is guaranteed. Actual future results, performance or achievements may vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation about the content, nor to update the forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date hereof. If you need to ask a question, please book your question on the chat of Bianca
She will be pleased to introduce you according to the booking order. At this time, I want to give the floor to Andrea Cangioli. Please go ahead, Andrea.
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Nicola. Thank you, Bianca, for your introduction, and thank you everybody for joining us in this earnings call after the read of the draft 2022 financials. It's Enrico Romagnoli and myself holding this earnings call on this topic. Needless to say, we are very pleased with the results we are discussing with you today for 2022, marking once again a robust revenue growth up 18% and overcoming the EUR 67 million threshold. Most important, marking an excellent EBIT margin, touching the record level of 12%. We are maintaining our financial strength, one of the traditional cornerstones of our business approach, with a net financial position up again at around EUR 88 million at the end of the year.
For today's call, we decided to modify our standard agenda schedule of the presentation. I am now done with a very short introduction. I ask Enrico to go ahead with a deep analysis of the notable achievements of our 2022, and I will be back to comment the results with a more prospective view of the current outlook. Thank you, Enrico, for going ahead.
Thank you, Andrea, good morning, everybody. I'm going to comment our last financial release yesterday. The 2022 financial year closed with extremely brilliant results as ever and well above the guidelines. In the period, consolidated revenues was over EUR 673 million, up 18% with a double-digit growth in both of our sector of activities. The growth in medical sector was 23% higher than industrial, with a growth of 12%. The gross margin for the year amounted to EUR 249.7 million, with an increase of 17.7% compared to the 212
Sorry, sorry, Enrico. Sorry, just a moment. There is someone. I kindly ask to turn off the microphone, please.
Thank you, Bianca.
With the line recording. Bye.
Thank you, Bianca. There is a lot of noise. In terms of gross margin, the year closed with EUR 249 million compared to EUR 212 million. The impact on sales is 37.1%, the same as result of last year. Operating expenses amounting to 56.2 million EUR, an increase in absolute value compared to last year, but with the same impact on sales. The main increases are referring to the commercial expenses as a effect of the recovery of international travel and trade fairs and congress activities, which particularly in the medical sector, is a significant cost. Staff costs are also increasing, even though the impact on turnover is slightly improving. On December 31st, there were over 2,100 group employees.
EBITDA amounted to EUR 95.2 million, up 18.9% compared to EUR 80 million last year, thanks to the increase in turnover and the better absorption of operating expenses. Also, the EBITDA margin improved too. Depreciation and provision decreased sharply, consequently, the EBIT margin increased from 11.4% to 12% of the current period. EBIT at the end of 2022 amounted to EUR 81 million, compared to EUR 64.8 million last year. The tax income affected by negative exchange foreign loss was positive for EUR 78.9 million, with an 11.0% impact on turnover and then 18.9% increase.
The net income amounted to EUR 65.1 million, with a 8.2 impact on turnover and a 21.3% increase. The tax rate for the year was 25 versus 26 of last year. Briefly, for what concern the fourth quarter of 2022, the growth in sales were 13.9%, and the profitability in terms of gross margin, EBITDA and EBIT was in line with the Q4 of 2021, a robust quarter as comparison. In terms of balance sheet, the net financial position of the group at the end of the year were positive for approximately EUR 88.5 million, reducing of EUR 27 million from the peak at the beginning of the year, but increasing of EUR 56 million from the lowest point at the end of September 2022.
The increase in net capital employed is also due to the consolidation of KDF, the last Chinese company acquired at the end of December, with a net impact of EUR 10 million included EUR 5 million of goodwill. Looking to the cash flow, as already said, in the year, the net financial position decreased by approximately EUR 27 million. The difficulties associated with the supply chains continued in the year, and the need to length the cycle of inventories to give stability to production process and the rapid growth achieved and expected, have led to an expansion of working capital and the consequent use of cash for EUR 51 million. The operating investment in the year was EUR 28 million.
CapEx for new building plants and other fixed assets reduced cash for EUR 23 million, when EUR 5 million are referred to the goodwill paid for KDF. During the year, dividends for EUR 17 million were paid, of which EUR 16 million by El.En., equal to EUR 0.20 per share. Yesterday, the board of the director resolved to propose to the shareholder meeting of El.En. to pay a dividend of EUR 0.22 next May. In for what concern the breakdown by business, the growth achieved was significant in all market segments in which the group operates. Double-digit results were registered both in the medical sector, which grew by 22%, and industrial applications sector, which showed a 4% increase.
Aesthetic, accounting for the 62.5% of the sector revenue, was the most important segment in the medical, showing a growth of 20% and a turnover of approximately EUR 239 million. In aesthetics, its performance was excellent in all main application segment: hair removal of tattoos and pigment lesions, body treatment and skin rejuvenation. The fastest growth was recorded in surgery, +37%, with a result of EUR 62 million compared to the EUR 55.2 million in the same period of last year, also exceeding the record levels achieved in 2019. A growth achieved also in therapy, where turnover grew by 17% to EUR 15.7 million compared to the EUR 15.5 million in the same period of 2021.
Revenue in after sales service were up by 19% with a sharp increase thanks to the increase of installed base and, above all, to the sale of optional softwares for urology surgical application. The industrial sector increased of 4%, a very positive result considering the negative condition of the Chinese market. The lack of growth in the China laser cutting segment did not penalize the overall result of laser cutting division, which nonetheless recorded an increase in turnover of 13%, thanks to the extraordinary performance of satellite plants in Italy and Brazil. The trend was still very positively in the laser marking segment, thanks to an acceleration in the second half of the year, reaching a 5% growth over the year, reaching EUR 25.4 million in turnover compared to the EUR 23.2 of last year.
Sales in after sales service increased of 24% in accordance with the increase in the installed base. In terms of sales by area, in both sector, the market with the most brilliant result were Europe and the United States of America, together with the Middle East. Only a few areas in the Far East recorded results lower than expected. For what concern the industrial sector in China, the expected recovery of the local economy and the basis of the expected growth for 2022 in the laser cutting sector was hampered by the persistence of the anti-COVID restriction, by the Chinese isolation, and by the effect of the economic slowdown, of which our important laser cutting business unit suffered. In 2022, our subsidiaries in China had a reduction on sales of 18% in local currency, reduced to 11.7% in EUR currency.
Please, Andrea, go ahead on 2023 guidance.
Thank you. Thank you, Enrico. I'd like, after Enrico's presentation, to underline and summarize certain essential factors that allowed the extraordinary results of 2022, and to compare them to the current status of our markets and our current positioning. Let's start from medical. The demand in the medical sector was strong as never before in 2022. We have been literally overwhelmed by purchase order throughout the year, and we increased our production capacity in order to enhance the monthly throughput in terms of shippable units. We also accelerated our purchasing schedules in order to anticipate the possible hiccups in our supply chains. The final, meaning, at the end of the year balance, was record production volume, record revenues, and high raw material inventories.
There were exceptions to this pattern, namely Asclepion could not succeed in fully preventing the supply chain failures and had to settle for a lower revenue growth in 2022. It was 11.6% quoted only, roughly one half of the sector's average of over 22%. At counterweight, Asclepion is showing today the largest backlog of unfulfilled demand, and is the medical sector division with the best outlook for 2023. Moreover, while benefiting of a very strong order inflow, we succeeded in slightly increasing our product prices to a significant part of our customers. That said, without affecting the order back bookings volume. The high levels of backlog as of the end of the year are also including parts with adjusted, meaning increased pricing. We had a significant tailwind that helped us in 2022, and it was the foreign exchange dynamics.
We had a conversion advantage with the renminbi, which strengthened and allows a better conversion of the revenue results of the Chinese division, even though they were weak. Especially the U.S. dollar was strong, steadily below $1.10 per EUR, averaging $1.05, as opposed to $1.18 in 2021. Our revenue expressed in U.S. dollars was roughly around EUR 90 million in 2022, which leads us to around EUR 10 million of revenue translation advantage in 2022 versus 2021. Since we are paying a relevant share of our manufacturing parts and components in U.S. dollars, this amount is offset for close of two-thirds of its amount. Therefore, we could account for roughly EUR 3 million of euro forex contribution to gross margin in EBIT.
By the way, since we covered part of the balance, expected in U.S. dollars at around $1.10 per EUR, you see the cost of the coverage in the financial expense line, which is not affecting EBIT, but it's affecting net profits only. What I wanted to state with my last paragraphs is that 2022 has been a very strong year for our medical business, and it constitutes a very challenging benchmark when comparing the expected 2023 performance against it. In 2022, we absorbed, business-wise, the impact of the Ukrainian War, which at the beginning of the year was casting a shadow of uncertainty in the stability of the worldwide business activities, but we successfully weathered it.
In 2023, the economic environment still bears the burden of the Ukrainian War. It is collecting and summing up the effects initiated in 2022 that did not have an immediate effect. They could not, if not in specific business areas. I'm talking of the interest rate hike and the impact on inflation on costs and margins. Inflation is a fact. The impact of the interest rates increase in cooling down the economy by making investment more challenging is, of course, a challenge itself for capital equipment manufacturers as we are. Moreover, as you know, the news flow from the banking sector in last weeks is not helping in putting the capital equipment customer at ease at all.
I wanted to mention, since this could be of interest for you, that we do not have any direct deposits in Silicon Valley Bank, and we are not aware also of customers of ours having direct deposits and being involved by any means with Silicon Valley Bank. The last weeks showed a softening of the order intake pace and also of the request for urgent deliveries which had characterized the whole 2022 with reference to open orders, especially from two relevant areas of our business, the Middle East and the United States. Our guidance is taking into account the challenges in further accelerating our medical revenues in 2022.
Good news here is that the basic determinants of our midterm market growth are unchanged, that we are looking forward to another very strong year in absolute value. The story of 2022 is quite different in the industrial sector. As you just heard in Enrico's words, while we cruise at full throttle worldwide in the medical sector, in the industrial sector, specifically in the laser cutting business, we suffered a sharp slowdown in China, our most significant market. A slowdown that was more than offset by the fantastic growth registered in the other markets, in Italy at first place and in Europe as well. Our revenue and profitability targets were widely missed in China, you heard why.
Also for the positive contribution of the marking sector, the overall result of the industrial sector was positive, accretive to revenue and profit growth, and the Chinese slowdown cannot prevent us from hitting our consolidated targets and records. In the cutting business, we are now looking forward to a year of very strong recovery of the Chinese business, freed up from the limitation and hindrances that we had to bear in 2022. For the country in its whole, and for us in particular, it will take some time, I guess, a few months, to invert the negative momentum of the very poor performance of the fourth quarter of 2022. We in the business community in China are counting on a very strong 2023.
At the same time, in this area of the world, I mean, in Italy and Europe, where I currently am, we plan to take progressively advantage of our penetration in the European and North American markets, and we are planning a strong international growth in the business, more than offsetting the easing of the Italian market expected due to the reduction in the tax cuts allowed in technological investment, the so-called Industry 4.0 tax cuts. The marking sector is expected to positively contribute to both revenue and profit growth in 2023, starting to take advantage of the extensive technical and sales-oriented investments of the last years. It's a sector that is worth to mention in this call.
We are talking of an overall size of about EUR 30 billion, where the investment in the new facilities in Torre Annunziata, I'm talking of the company LASIT, together with the new subsidiaries in Poland and Spain, should now become materially productive. Back to the cutting business. I owe you an update on the ongoing process that we initiated some time ago to try to elevate the organization to the standards required to file for an IPO in mainland China. Such standards involve requirements of several kinds. We have streamlined the relevant unit by putting Cutlite Penta Italy and Cutlite do Brasil under the control of Penta Laser Zhejiang. We have now a set of financial investors flanking our efforts as shareholders, and we are aligning the control and reporting procedure to the specific local standards for public companies.
Most important, we are struggling to achieve the profitability level that makes the whole process possible and meaningful. We were not supported by positive market trends in the last 18 months, but we count on being in the coming 12. In December, we acquired a control stake of KDS, a Shenzhen company specializing in the design and production of production lines based on laser technology for batteries for electrical vehicles. We decided to differentiate in this side market with a very high growth potential, counting on its accretive revenue and profit contribution stemming from the business. Summarizing the current outlook for the industrial business, we see a year of strong growth. This is what the first week of the year are hinting.
As for the medical sector, limitation in credit facilities under the form of higher interest rates, down to the extreme threat that a credit crunch could put on the market, could hinder our expected development path. As of today, we do not see any relevant negative effect. The guidance we released yesterday as initial yearly guidance and therefore cautious, due to the nature of our order backlog, which, as you know, is extremely strong and rich at the moment, but as you know, it typically cover only a few months of production and of sales. This guidance specified revenue increase on a consolidated type basis without specifying the quantity of the revenue increase, and set a goal on the profit side at the confirmation of the EBIT accounted for in 2022.
This means, of course, a lower profitability in terms of EBIT margins as a result of the mix effect, since the industrial sector is expected to increase its weight. Also, of the current projections of both gross margins and leverage effect, which at the time being, we project to be solid, but not supported by the tailwinds that helped out in 2022, but rather facing the headwinds that I described earlier. Headwinds, I would like to be clear, that are not market specific and not even specific to our position in which we feel increasingly strong and positive, but are due to the general economic environment. Before opening the question and answer section, I would like to leave you with two comments.
The company and the group feels extremely strong and well-positioned to take advantage of the expected growth of our markets in the coming years, and is confident to have another year with very strong profitability and also with growth. We decided, the board of directors decided to propose to the approval of the shareholders a EUR 0.22 per share dividend, which is a 10% increase on the dividend paid in 2022. At this moment, I'm done with my presentation, and we will be happy to answer your questions.
We start with the Q&A session, and we have in our list three questions. The first one from Giovanni Selvetti from Berenberg. Please turn on the microphone, please.
Yeah. Hello. Can you hear me?
Ciao, Giovanni.
Ciao, Giovanni.
Hi, Enrico. Thanks for taking my question. Well, I think that the main worry here is around the guidance of 2023, I'm trying to understand what's the situation. As you were saying before in the press release and in the presentation that you share, you're talking about not just a reduction in the EBIT margins because, you know, if the EBIT were flat and revenues were up, EBIT margins would go down as a result. Also you're talking about an EBIT down in absolute numbers. From your presentation now, it seems that most of the difficulties are coming from the medical division.
My first question is if you already start to see a final slowdown due to the fact that leases are probably higher due to higher interest rates? To what extent is this slowing the demand also? Because if I look at the full year results, the implied growth of [audio distortion] was still really, really strong. Would you surprise to see a massive drop in the first Q1 of the year? The second one is on the Chinese market. You were saying that the fourth quarter was still impacted by the lockdowns. I just want to have again an understanding of how is the situation here for the first quarter of the year, what should we expect? If the
Again, this should speed up the possible reopening the process of the listing of the captain division. What's the timeline there? My third question is on Accure. If we can provide an update and when can we expect this product to start generating revenues? We're talking about the acne treatment laser that you would, you just say, authorized by the FDA before Christmas. Last question is on cash. You were saying that of course, the cash was impacted in 2022 due to a strong increase in inventories to meet the demand. Can we expect that given the current environment and the current guidance you're giving with demand in aesthetics slowing down, you know, a cash balance to go up?
What kind of level of CapEx should we expect of 2023? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Giovanni. First, in the EBIT margin, which exactly since we are somehow applying a constant EBIT margin as the aspiration, EBIT, excuse me, as an aspiration, we have a set of negative effects which are leading to a reduction in the EBIT margin and therefore to a reduction on EBIT, even though we are plotting a growth in revenue. The mix is the strongest. We plan to grow, but we are not saying today how much will be the growth, but we are planning a fairly sharp growth in industrial, in the industrial business, which is bearing lower profitability margins. This is a mixed effect which accounts for one component.
The other component is that due to the inflation, due to the impossibility of plotting a foreign exchange advantage again in 2023, at the same, even at the same volumes, we will have a reduced gross margin in medical side. We increase the production capacity, if we do not increase by a certain amount the volumes, we also have a reduction in the leverage effect. When the fact that we are not plotting today in our projection, a very fast growth has also an impact on EBIT margins. Nevertheless, I believe that the margins that we are plotting today are margins which are excellent. If you look at our history, are of course lower than what we had in 2022.
Again, 2022 benefited of a set of very, very positive, very, very positive situations that we cannot, let's say, at this point, give for given for 2023 as well. IPO in the industrial business. IPO in the industrial business is something we are working. And we are making a great effort to be ready as an organization in all the details. We had this equity funds, the current equity funds entering our capital, which is a prerequisite. We're working. The timeframe in which we might go for a filing is hopefully when we start seeing a real return to quick growth and profitability. We hope this to be within the end of this 2023. Accure.
Accure is, as you know, this related company which raised a certain amount of money in order to develop the distribution of the Accure Laser, which has been developed by Quanta System. They got, or we got, the FDA clearance in late 2022. We are now ready for commercialization. The strategy currently is to go for.
I can't hear you anymore, Andrea. I think that.
I don't know what happened. Now you should hear me, don't you? Yeah, yeah. Something appeared on my screen that I wasn't, I wasn't audible anymore. Accure. The plan is to place on the market a first batch, quite consistent of pilot devices, in order then to approach more strong to the market in a second phase. Our budget for 2023, therefore, does not include anything splash on this device and on the revenue generated by this device, which is expected according to our plans to take place later on in the year with a limited effect on 2023, and a more strong, a stronger effect expected in 2024. Cash. You're right. I mean, your assumption, e xcuse me.
All you, the assumption you developed in your question are correct. We increased the inventory based on the increased volume and on the extension of the transit time of production in the factory due to the need to buy materials before in order to prevent delays by our suppliers. We are planning a revenue growth, and we have purchases set in-house in order to be able to have a revenue growth in terms of production volumes. Should the production volumes do not meet the expected growth, we would have, in a first moment, an increase in inventory, and then we would readjust the purchasing volume.
Unfortunately, given the current purchasing market, the supply situation, we cannot get even close to what you would call a just-in-time purchasing strategy. If we were purchasing just in time, simply we wouldn't be able to deliver. Therefore, we have to take position on raw materials in order to be able to manufacture more over the year. This may reflect in increased inventories if we are not able to sell more than we sell the quantities that we have scheduled for production. The good news here is that there's no risk of obsolescence because we are buying for our mainstreams, which, I mean, if we not produce in Q1, we produce in Q2, Q3 or whatever.
We do not have production changes in our production structure that cause a very rapid obsolescence of our components. In fact, what we are more faced, facing is something different. We are facing more obsolescence in terms that certain suppliers are cutting the production of certain components, and we need to design around the components that are missing and that are getting obsolete in order to continue the productions that we have and that are counting on certain technologies. The risk is not more on the purchase side than on the sales side. CapEx. Finally, CapEx. We have an investment plan for 2022, which 2023, excuse me, which is aggressive.
The CapEx, as of today, even though we're planning in expanding our building surface here in Florence and continuing to expand the available surface and to set up the production facilities that we have around the world, currently are scheduled to be lower than in 2022. We had in 2022, roughly EUR 22 million of investment in fixed assets. Enrico?
Yes. [audio distortion]
EUR 22 million, out of which more or less EUR 15 million in new buildings and in revamping of existing buildings. I believe that the EUR 7 million, which is not in buildings, will stay more or less as they are, maybe increasing by EUR 1 million. This is the current plan. The EUR 15 million in revamping of buildings should be around one half of that amount or just slightly above such amount. Of course, should we be faced by investment opportunities, we will take advantage. Like here in Florence, we are somehow limited in our expansion capabilities. In the past, we had to take advantage of certain neighbors selling their plants and decided from one day to another one to buy it. It wasn't in the plans, but it was an effective investment.
I believe I'm done with answering to your questions.
Yeah. Maybe just on the first one. I don't know if I didn't get it or if you mentioned, but if we start to see clients postponing orders because of increasing leases in the medical business.
Increasing leases. This is something which is probably part of this softening that we are seeing. I mean, there's two components. The unavailability of the credits, which would be worse, but we are not seeing. The postponing, when you see that instead of paying so percent, you're asked 57%, you get a little bit, let's say uncertain, and you somehow postpone. Yes, this is affecting. This is affecting for sure. The way we compete is to innovate and to make our sales proposition even more attractive to the customers. Another effect could be at a certain point to make the offer more attractive by reducing a little bit the price, by helping the customers paying higher interest by in fact discounting.
In the past, in Italy, we had several times the offers which are typical also in the consumer market, the so-called zero interest offers. You know what a zero interest offer is. It's basically a discount to the lease units that by this way, can avoid to charge any interest to the customer, but because it pays the units from the, from the supplier. Did I answer your question now?
Yes, it's clear now. Thank you.
Andrea, the second, the second question comes from François Robillard of Intermonte, from Intermonte. Go ahead, François.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. First one is just coming back on your top line and growth expectations for next year. Basically, apart from the fears of the declining demand and the absence of comeback of the favorable foreign exchange condition, I believe, I understand that your order books remain at some pretty high level. Plus, we've seen some from peers like Inmode in the medical segment that's guiding +16% for next year. [audio distortion] which is also positive for growth.
Should I understand that your guidance is pretty much due to the potential slowdown in certain parts, and how much of this do you already see as of today? That's my first question. Second question on supply chain, you already answered some of Giovanni's question on that. Just on the freight costs, those have reduced quite significantly over the last few months. How did it affect your cost structure going forward? What was the effect of freight cost inflation in 2022, and should we expect this to go away in 2023? That's my second question.
The third question, if I understood correctly from your presentation, you are intending to start selling industrial products as well in the U.S. to counterbalance for slowdown in Italy demand. Can you confirm that? If so, will it be made in China or in your Italian plants, the products that will be destined to the U.S. market? Finally, just a quick one on financial costs. We've seen quite a spike in the first quarter. Can you just give us some more details on what were the components of this acceleration in financial costs in the first quarter, and can we expect it to continue in 2023? Thank you.
Okay. First, the guidance, if we expect a slowdown, if it's prudent, if it's not prudent, how do we consider our backlog. We are at the very beginning of the year. We need to be prudent because we know, I mean, if I tell you that our order backlog is 10% more than it was at the beginning of 2022, I'm not being wrong. What counts is not necessarily the backlog, but it's also how the backlog is converted into orders and how quickly it is converted into orders and how the customer are pressing for the deliveries of orders.
Unfortunately, since our orders are not backed up by a letter of credit which sets an exact delivery date with a financial collateral, the orders amount tell us that we have a great demand expecting us in the next months. It does not. What determines the pace is what actually is going on in the market. Since we have seen a slowdown in these weeks compared to the real hunger that we were seeing in the months of 2022, we decided to be, especially in the medical sector, more prudent in outlining the expected volumes for 2023.
Concerning the supply side and the impact of inflation and our ability to neutralize the impact of inflation, if I am getting right your question, François, we have had a progressive increase in our manufacturing costs, and we offset part of this cost increase by production efficiencies. The increase of volumes of 2022 increased production efficiency and reduced, in a way, our cost of goods sold, and also by price increases. Now that we are getting into 2023, I don't see any slowdown in inflation. Inflation is still there. Our vendors are continuing to apply as price increases. Maybe not as markedly as they were doing in certain months of 2022, inflation is not gone.
We, as I told you, increased our price list. Theoretically, all our prices are increased with respect of the prices we were charging in 2022. This should enable offsetting parts, at least in part, the increase in cost. As I mentioned, by answering to Giovanni Selvetti, should we encounter softness, should we have problems in our customer funding, probably we would be forced to be more aggressive on our pricing and give up certain margin points in order to make sure we continue the volumes which grants us the leverage effect, which allows us to keep more interesting EBIT levels. U.S. cutting. Yes, you are right.
We are starting to sell in the United States as we are increasing the sales volumes in Europe as well, to counterbalance the expected slowdown of the growth in sales on the Italian market due to the effects of the changes in the tax policies of the Italian government. Currently, the strategy is to sell in the U.S. from Italy. We don't feel appropriate in this moment to structure any commercial relation between China and the United States, not because it wouldn't be profitable, but because I believe we can be profitable well enough by shipping the European product, which in the United States, in this moment, has a much higher level of acceptance.
Yeah. Thank you. How sizable is that opportunity? Can you share with us a target of in 2023 onwards for U.S. cutting sales?
We are not. I mean, maybe, maybe later in the year we will, we'll be more specific. In this moment, we cannot be specific market by market. Also because, I mean, we are not blocking a market introduction that will account for, say, 20% of our sales. We are going to progressively get on the market. We are counting to increase the total export share of the products manufactured in Italy, but it would be inappropriate and to give an exact count, guidance country by country. We plan to do well. It's gonna be. I mean, we had a few units in 2022. We won't get to tens of units in 2023.
It will be supporting the increase of sales that we expect for the industrial market in 2023.
Thank you. Sorry, one last thing on financial costs in the fourth quarter.
Financial cost. Now, why it is higher in Q4? Maybe, maybe Enrico can tell you. Most of the financial cost is foreign exchange. Why it was higher is probably due to the behavior of the foreign exchange. Enrico?
Yeah, yeah. More or less is the most part of the financial cost of foreign exchange loss, mainly due to the U.S. dollar, because we had the U.S. dollar at the end of Q3 was below the units compared with the euro. Now we are around 0.9- 0.90, 0.95, 0.97. At the end of the year, the U.S. dollar was over one, so we are around 1.05- 1.06. The most part of the costs concern the foreign exchange loss in the euro versus the dollar.
Thank you.
Andrea, we have three more questions. The first one comes from Antoine Fourier. Go on, Antoine, please.
Hi.
Antoine? Are you still there? Maybe not. Okay. We can continue with Andrea Bonfà from Banca Akros, please. Go on, Andrea.
Hi, Andrea.
Andrea, I hope you can hear me. My question is, again, related to the guidance. Most of it has already been elaborated and explained. Still I want to be sure to have understood in the sense that in industrial, especially in this year, you see growth, so EBIT for industrial division should expand. On, on medical, if I understood correctly, you see. Sorry?
I can barely hear you. The microphone.
Sorry. It was my microphone was not properly inserted. Sorry. Let me start over again. I'm trying to better understand your guidance. Industrial laser division is expanding, so on that no major issue for this year. We are waiting and counting for the Chinese recovery. On medical, if I understood correctly, you are expecting a moderate growth. I think, let's say it's such a growth that inflation will then part of the expansion at the end of the day. Is that more or less correct? If that is correct, I presume in 2022, if Forex was an important tailwind to your profitability, and if it's possible to quantify the Forex contribution level for 2022. Thanks.
First, yes, I confirm my guidance is nominal. I mean it's expressed in nominal value, therefore, it's not in quantities, it's in EUR, and therefore it includes price increase where we have price increases. Concerning the foreign exchange, I went through in my presentation of a rough analysis of what the foreign exchange helped in terms of EBIT margin, and gross margin, and I quantified the tailwind in about EUR 3 million. Which is in gross margin, which is in EBIT margin, and which is for 50% in net profit. For about 50%, we have the cost of the coverage, which is a cost because we covered at 1.10.
We covered ourselves at 1.10 when the dollar was at 1.13. The dollar went down to one, or to close to one. Therefore, we have a cost of coverage. This is the effect of the forex in 2022 overall. Is it clear?
Okay. If these are the number, okay. Yeah, yeah. If these are the number are not a huge impact on your last year profitability. Again, on your guidance, at the end of the day, the largest headwind is inflation. Because, I mean, you are expecting strong growth in Industrial. You are expecting anyway nominal top line growth in Medical. Will be modest, it will be seen, but you are expecting top line growth. You are guiding from a lower EBIT. At the end of the day, it's your cost base, which is expanding fast and inflation in general. Is that correct, in a nutshell?
I mean, in the low side of our projection, this is correct. In the low side of our projections, which we disclosed at the very end, we didn't want to be too optimistic in our guidance at the beginning of the year, as we have always been. There's a gross margin erosion due to mix and also an EBIT margin erosion due to leverage. Leverage takes place also at constant volumes due to the increasing costs. By the way, in Italy, we are gonna have an average 2.5% increase in wages due to the 5% increase in costs that we will have from June because of the change in the national agreements of our sector.
We are facing increasing fixed costs, and it will be harder for us to get the same leverage effect on EBIT at the same volumes. Of course, had we disclosed a more optimistic guidance or, we have a range, of course, in what we see, taking place in the year. The better we do, I mean, if we increase the volumes, this is more than linearly accretive on EBIT due to the leverage effect. We need to be cautious in this phase of the year because the year is long. It didn't start well, for what is going on with the economic environment. It started very well for our positioning and for the feeling we had with our customers.
Over the weeks, as I said, we felt that the uncertainty driven by certain financial factors like interest rates and also lately by this new earthquake generated by the banks' bankruptcy have a little bit hindered the confidence of our customers. We are very positive that this will be developing positively over the year. In our range of expected results, we want to keep cautious in delivering that to the market today, as we have, as you know, as we have always done at the beginning of the year.
Okay, thank you very much.
Andrea, we have one more question from Victoria. The last one from Victoria Konstantinova from Victory Capital. Go on, Victoria, please. Victoria? Victoria?
She left. Her microphone is on. Her microphone is on.
Yes. Because the question of Victoria was. Just a moment. I will read for you. Oh, Okay. This is the question of Victoria. Are you expecting medical sales to be flat or increase in 2023? Which areas of aesthetic do you expect to be most impacted?
Yes. our plan, which underlies the guidance we disclosedIs providing for a moderate growth in the medical sector, given by a stronger growth in certain segments and a lower growth and also a flatness in other sectors. The sector in which we are noting the highest growth are urology and dermatology. The sector in which we are seeing, the least chances of further expanding our production volume is hair removal, which is the segment in which we marked the most important growth in 2022. Hello?
I'm asking to Victoria if she have another question. No, thank you. Andrea, we do not have any other question in our list. If there are no more questions from the investors, we finish this conference. If you have some other questions to investigate, please do not hesitate to contact Enrico Romagnoli. He will be happy to answer your questions. Thank you to Andrea Cangioli and Enrico Romagnoli. Thank you to all the investors that attended this conference. We hope to have you all again next time. Good afternoon to everybody.