Good afternoon, and thank you very much, all of you, for taking the time to attend Gestamp full-year 2023 results presentation in this probably very, very busy afternoon for you. I am Ana Fuentes, Director, and before proceeding, let me refer you to the disclaimer and slide number 2 of this presentation that has been posted on our website, and I will set out the legal framework under which this presentation must be considered. The conference call will be led by our Executive Chairman, Mr. Francisco Riberas, and our CFO, Mr. Ignacio Mosquera. At the end of the conference, we will open up for a Q&A session. Now, please, let me turn the call to our Executive Chairman, Mr. Riberas.
Okay, so good afternoon, and thanks for attending this call in which we will be presenting the 2023 results of our group. 2023 has been, for us, another record year in terms of revenues and also in terms of our main financial parameters, while at the same time, we have been able to boost our financial profile with a very sound free cash flow generation and also being able to reduce our debt and to and to improve our leverage. So by doing that, I think it's been 2023 one step ahead in order to reinforce our position of partner supplier to our customers. Moving to slide five, I would say that, following the problems of 2020 and 2021, Gestamp has had two consecutive record years in 2022 and 2023 in terms of growth and earnings.
Much better, 2023, than 2017, the year of the IPO when 95 million select vehicles were produced versus 90 million this year, and also better than 2019 with a similar amount of vehicles manufactured. So in fact, and just as a figure, our sales per vehicle manufactured globally has moved from EUR 86 in 2017 to EUR 140 in 2023. In terms of the market, what we have seen is the light vehicle manufacturing has grown much more than expected by the market in the beginning of the year. We were all expecting an increase of 3.5% in our footprint, and the final growth has been more than 10%, and out of these additional 5 million vehicles, more than two-thirds have been built in Asia.
So but coming back to the slide number seven, as 2023 volumes are already at a similar level of 2019, pre-COVID, it is important to mention that in this period from 2019 to 2023, our auto business, in terms of revenue growth and without the impact of raw materials, has grown by 16%. We have been able also to improve the profitability of our auto business from an EBITDA margin of 11.8% to 12.6%. We have been able to generate a very sound free cash flow of more than EUR 200 million since 2020, more than EUR 1 billion accumulated in the period, and also we have been able to improve our leverage, moving from 2.5x debt to EBITDA in 2019 to 1.5x right now. So in terms of the guidance, I think, clearly we have been able to have a good performance in 2023.
In terms of revenues, we have obtained a double-digit reported revenue growth, an increase of 14.4% year-on-year, with our auto business doing out of performance of 6.4% and Gescrap contribution to this revenue growth of 5.7% year-on-year. In terms of EBITDA, we have also had a double-digit reported EBITDA growth. That means 13.4% year-on-year increase, with the auto business EBITDA margin at the level of 12.6% and Gescrap with an EBITDA margin of 7.4%. CAPEX of 7.7% over reported revenues, but excluding the impact of FX, would have represented 7.4% as guided, and with a free cash flow of EUR 207 million. In terms of our market outperformance in 2023, I will say that excluding the impact of lower price on raw materials and auto and also at FX costs, we have been able to outperform the market by 6.4 percentage points.
A very sound outperformance in Asia, in Mercosur, and also in Eastern Europe. We have level very similar to the market if we exclude the impact of raw materials in the case of Western Europe and a little bit less than the growth in NAFTA because we have less exports here to our American customers. We had solid organic growth during the 2023 period.
In this red chart that we see here, we have seen that we have our reported revenues has moved from EUR 10,726 million to EUR 12,274 million, and that has been driven by the very solid organic growth of EUR 1,579 million, also a contribution by acquisition to the perimeter of EUR 608 million, and it's been offset to some extent by raw materials but also by the impact of adverse forex from currencies like the operations in China, Argentina, Turkey, and also in the U.S. As mentioned in our capital market day, EV is a very important lever of our growth strategy, and we have been able to do very well in this market during 2023. In fact, if we consider the market itself, EV manufacturing in 2022 represented 14% of total manufacturing that year, and in 2023, this increase has moved to 17%.
But in the case of Gestamp, our sales related to EVs in 2022 were 14% of our sales, and in 2023, we have been able to move this to 20% of our sales, and that has been driven by our good positioning towards the EVs with our technology and different kind of innovations. In the slide number 12, we are addressing here the problems in NAFTA in our auto business, which our auto business in 2023 performance has been tracked down by our NAFTA operations. In revenues, for instance, we see that in terms of our total auto revenues, we have been able to grow by 16.6%, but if we exclude our NAFTA operations, the growth of our revenues in the auto business in the rest of the world has increased by 19.9% representing an outperformance of 9.2%.
But even more important, in terms of profitability, our EBITDA has moved from EUR 1,208 million to EUR 1,325 million, so that means an EBITDA margin of 12.6% of our auto business. But if we were to exclude the low return in our NAFTA operations of last year of 7.3%, we could have been able to have an EBITDA excluding raw materials for the rest of the world of 14%. So what we see is a huge potential for us.
As you know, EBITDA is not impacted by raw materials due to a pass-through process. For the full-year 2023, we have reached revenues of EUR 12,274 million, which entails a double-digit growth of 14.4% when compared to the EUR 10,726 million from 2022. Revenues for the auto business, excluding Gescrap and raw material impact, at FX constant have grown by more than 17% year-on-year in year 2023. In terms of EBITDA, we have generated EUR 1,371 million in 2023, meaning an 11.2% margin or a 12.3% EBITDA margin if we exclude the impact from raw materials. As Paco has mentioned earlier, our profitability this year has been dragged down by our NAFTA business. Reported EBIT has grown by 26.1% year-on-year to EUR 680 million, with an EBIT margin of 5.5% or 6.1% excluding the raw materials impact. This significant improvement is partially thanks to our disciplined CAPEX policy.
Net income in 2023 has been EUR 281 million that compares to the EUR 260 million reported in 2022, and net debt has decreased by almost EUR 90 - EUR 2,058 million as we will later detail. Moving on to slide 16, we can see the performance by region on a year-over-year basis. Looking at each region in detail, revenues in Western Europe have grown by around 9% year-over-year in 2023 to almost EUR 4.7 billion. Performance in the region is negatively impacted by raw materials. It is worth highlighting the strong momentum in Germany, France, and U.K. over 2023. In terms of EBITDA, it reached EUR 540 million, which represents an increase of 18% year-over-year. As a result, EBITDA margin is 2%-11.6% in the period, improving by almost 100 bps year-over-year despite inflationary pressures. This performance reflects an improved operational leverage.
Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, we have been flat with the market excluding raw materials, with regards to our outperformance. In Eastern Europe, the performance in the year has been solid despite the market circumstances, proving again our strong positioning in the region, particularly in markets such as Poland, Slovakia, or Czech Republic. On a reported basis, during 2023, revenues and EBITDA have grown by around 7% year-on-year to EUR 1,713 million and EUR 248 million, respectively, with an EBITDA margin of 14.1% flat year-on-year. In NAFTA, not much to add to what Paco has previously explained. We see this region as a strong opportunity despite we continue to be negatively impacted by our client and project mix and limited profitability in some specific contracts. Our revenues have grown by around 6% year-on-year, while EBITDA has decreased by 15%, leading to an EBITDA margin of 6.7%.
As explained during our capital markets day in June, and as Paco will go through in more in-depth later, we remain focused on turning around the region through a plan to improve our market positioning and profitability in NAFTA over the coming years. In Mercosur, revenues for the full-year 2023 have increased by almost 4% to close to EUR 900 million. Revenue growth has strongly decelerated in the fourth quarter due to the extraordinary devaluation of the Argentinian peso. EBITDA in the period has remained flattish year-on-year at EUR 105 million, with EBITDA margin slightly deteriorating versus last year but still at healthy levels of 11.7%. In Asia, our performance continues to benefit from our strategy to grow in EV, mainly in China, and we continue to see this market as an opportunity for us.
In 2023, revenues in this region have seen the strongest growth, at 15%, and have reached EUR 1.9 billion with a strong market outperformance explained by our EV products. As a result, EBITDA grew by almost 23% in the period, with EBITDA margin improving to 14%. Finally, Gescrap has contributed with EUR 626 million to our 2023 reported revenues and a EUR 46 million EBITDA, which implies a 7.4% margin. The performance of this business in the year has been negatively impacted by the general fall in metal prices. Overall, we have seen a solid performance in the period driven by strong organic growth despite the negative impact from forex and an EBITDA margin excluding raw materials at 12.3%. In fact, our auto business has reached an EBITDA margin of 12.6% excluding raw materials, in line with the 12.5%-13% EBITDA margin target we guided at the beginning of the year.
Turning to slide 17, we see we have generated a strong free cash flow in the year, meeting our guidance of generating more than EUR 200 million in 2023. We have closed 2023 with a net debt of EUR 2.058 billion, which is EUR 87 million below the EUR 2.145 billion net debt reported as of December 2022. Excluding dividend payments and acquisitions, including those in China, Morocco, and Mitsui, we have generated EUR 207 million thanks to the strong revenue and EBITDA growth in the period and a strong working capital management. Within the strategy of acquiring minority stakes that we initiated in 2021, this year, we have acquired stakes in Morocco, China, Argentina, and the U.S. These last two have been to Mitsui. During this year, we have invested EUR 950 million of CAPEX, including growth and replacement.
These investments will allow us to preserve our growth profile via the vanguard in technology and innovation while leveraging on the EV transition. As we move into slide 18, we see that we continue focused in reinforcing our balance sheet profile and deleveraging. We have ended 2023 with a net debt of EUR 2.058 billion, which implies a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.5x . This is the lowest leverage ratio we have had since the IPO and implies that we have already met our capital markets day target of being within the range of 1x-1.5x net debt-to-EBITDA through 2027. If we look at debt in absolute terms, we see that we are succeeding in our debt reduction strategy as we have reported the lowest gross debt figure since the IFRS 16 implementation.
Turning to slide 19, we present our latest business KPI that we introduced in our capital markets day in June, the return on capital employed. As we have made clear, our 2027 strategy is focused on generating value for shareholders, making sure that we invest on profitable growth. Our return on capital employed in 2023 has improved by 390 basis points year on year to 17.9%, mostly driven by EV growth and selective CAPEX to ensure an accretive growth profile. It is worth noting that a part of this improvement is related to growth CAPEX of projects that have not yet started and are reflected in our balance sheet. We should expect potentially some short-term dilution but with no impact in the long run. Thank you all, and now I hand over the presentation to Paco for the outlook and NAFTA review, and proceeding months.
Thanks, Nacho. And looking at 2024 in terms of the market, what we see is 2024 to be a transition year. We are expecting more or less the manufacturing of vehicles around 90 million units, and this market to keep on growing from 2024- 2027 at a level of around 1.7% in terms of CAGR. In 2024, this is gonna be some limited growth in Asia and NAFTA and no growth in Europe and Mercosur as is expected right now. And moving to the next slide, I think it's important that even if we see some volatility in the short term around EV growth, what is clear is for the future, EV is gonna be the most important lever in order to go towards a model of sustainable mobility.
For 2024, we are expecting a growth in terms of manufacturing of EVs of 30% and also an increase, up till 2027 of around 25% CAGR until 2027. By 2027, probably more than 40% of the vehicles manufactured at a global basis will be already EVs. So clearly, it's gonna be different, level of penetration in the markets, probably being the most, important or relevant market for EVs is China and Western Europe. If we, if we move to slide 24, this year has been quite important for us because we have made a strong commercial effort in order to be able to get there to receive nominations of more than 100 new projects. This is our record, all the intake for us.
We have been able to reinforce our backlog, this backlog now representing EUR 56.6 billion, and it's covering basically 92% of our revenues expected from 2024- 2028. So clearly, we have with this a very good visibility in order to be able to reinforce our growth profile. So moving to the next slide, our focus in terms of 2024, of course, is gonna be to preserve our growth profile, of course, mitigating any potential EV volatility with more volumes in combustion vehicles. Of course, trying to keep on investing heavily in technology and innovation to be always at the vanguard and also with a clear and disciplined CAPEX in order to be able to capture the growth in the future.
But also, not only preserving growth but also ensuring profitability, we'll put a lot of effort in increasing our efficiency and productivity of our operations, of course, also enhancing the flexibility in order to be able to react quickly to any demand fluctuations and also to be very much focused in successful launches of different programs. But of course, the key element for this year is gonna be the NAFTA Phoenix Plan that I am gonna talk about that later. So the guidance for 2024 means that, for our auto business, we are expecting outperformance in the low single-digit range. And for aftermarket, or for aftermarket, we are expecting similar revenues to the ones in 2023. In the case of the EBITDA margin, for the auto business, we are assuming a flat to a slight increase in reported basis and aftermarket with a similar EBITDA margin to 2023.
We are expecting also a positive free cash flow generation in the range of EUR 200 million. Preserving our leverage means inside the range that was communicated in the Capital Markets Day between 1x and 1.5x net debt to EBITDA. With this now, we move to the Phoenix Plan, the NAFTA Plan, 360° plan, a plan that, of course, is built in order to be able to improve the efficiency of our operations in North America. Our operations in North America, of course, started many years ago. Before 2025, we had a very good established business. It's true that, from 2016 - 2018, we started at an aggressive expansion fast phase, and we had problems at that time. We were able to correct part of these problems before the COVID in 2018 and 2019.
But the reality is that from 2020 to now, we had very bad performance in our operations in NAFTA, basically not being able to offset the problems of inflation, efficiency, and other problems of the North American market. If we go to the next slide, if we have it clear, we can see that we have failed since 2019 to improve the profitability of our North American operations. In 2019, in terms of revenues, we had a little bit slightly below EUR 2 billion in terms of sales. We have been able to grow our sales of our operations in U.S. and Mexico by 25%, which increased to EUR 2.5 billion. But if we refer to profitability, in 2019, we obtained an EBITDA of EUR 220 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 11.2%.
In 2023, last year, we had a margin of 6.7% with EUR 166 million due to operational issues and inflation, and that now we will go through that. In terms of examples in the next slide, we can talk about some clear KPIs in order to see what are the differences between our operations in NAFTA in 2023 and the operations in the rest of the world. If we refer to cost per stroke, for instance, we have roughly 30% less cost per stroke in NAFTA than the similar facilities in the rest of the world. If we refer to CapEx to sales ratio in NAFTA, we have 20% CapEx, and we have 16.4% in the rest of the operations. If we refer to the voluntary turnover rate in NAFTA, it during 2023 has been 26.4%, while in the rest of the world, it's been 11%.
If we refer to quality-related cost to sales, it's been 3x more in NAFTA than in the rest of our world operations. So moving to the next slide, of course, the NAFTA performance has forced our margin to be below the expected one. So that means that, without the impact of the low profitability of our NAFTA operations, we could have been able to obtain a 12.6% EBITDA margin. As reported this year, we have generated 11.4%. So we have missed 120 basis points just because of the low profitability of our operations. The Phoenix Plan is a comprehensive plan focused in enhancing the efficiency of our operations. But it's also a plan that is planning to reinforce our purchasing capacity in order to be able to improve our costs and our CAPEX.
It's also a plan where we are focusing in our people, trying to rebuild Gestamp culture but in an American way, and, of course, also trying to address inflation and volume fluctuations in a fair partnership with our customers. But focusing, of course, in our operations, right now, what we try is to identify the most important problems in our plants. Out of our 15 facilities in North America, we have already nine facilities with an EBITDA margin of 10%. Of course, some of them are doing quite well, but in the rest in all of them, we will keep on improving, trying to bring our excellence strategy always as business as usual. But we are, of course, developing and thinking about to execute our restructuring plan in the other six facilities.
In fact, moving to the next slide, the idea is that three of these plants we have already identified, expert plants from our operation basically in Europe. These plants are already working together with the management of the U.S. plants, trying to support and trying to transfer to send all the knowledge and trying to be able to explain all the best practices we have in our best plants in the world in order to be able to improve operations in a sustainable way. There are other three plants where we are planning to do a little bit more in-depth restructuring. This in-depth restructuring, if we move to the next slide, it could be, for instance, to delocalize one of our facilities in the U.S., which is not doing well. In this case, logistic cost is allowing us to do that.
And another way is to see one of our plants in the south of the U.S., whether we could be able to completely change the kind of work that we have right now or even to consider a kind of an organized facility closure. This plan has a clear governance. This Phoenix Plan is supported by the whole Gestamp organization. And, of course, in the next years, it's gonna be a priority for all of us, and this priority is gonna be represented because the successful execution of the Phoenix Plan is gonna be a key lever of Gestamp remuneration, at the level group. And, of course, all this governance of this Phoenix Plan is gonna base in clear responsibilities and objectives and targets, and it's gonna have a dedicated team sponsored by Gestamp top management from everybody in Gestamp.
The cost, of course, of this project is gonna be relevant. If we think about what is gonna be the cost in terms of CapEx and OPEX, it's gonna be representing roughly around EUR 60 million, cost related to experts, to hiring more people, even to the outsourcing of the current capacity of some of our facilities in the U.S. in order to be able to improve these facilities. Also, it's gonna have a CAPEX associated with this of around EUR 39 million, basically by trying to upgrade part of the assets that we have right now running and with some problems. Moving to the clear numbers, our target here is to increase our EBITDA margin from 6.7% in 2023 to more than 10% in 2026.
So that means, part of this improvement is gonna come from the improvement of the margin mix and the volume coming out from the new programs. And another important part of it is gonna come from the impact of the Phoenix Plan in operations, in our conversations with our customers and also in purchasing. With that, we should be able to offset the impact of inflation, of course, and it's gonna be able to position ourselves to be able to get an EBITDA margin of 11%-13% by 2027. So to end up this explanation of the Phoenix Plan, clearly, NAFTA is a very important region for us. It's the second largest, important, and we need to improve our operations in NAFTA.
We have now a clear strategy plan to upgrade NAFTA to Gescrap standards, and we have clearly identified a number of facilities with two different degrees of intervention. And our idea, of course, is trying to be able to get all these targets in order to be able to really fulfill all the targets that we have for our 2027 ambitions. So just to end up, one remark around our ESG plan. 2023 has been a critical year for us because we have been able to start with our new plan. This plan, in terms of our environmental commitments, now we have clearly set dates for our neutrality in Scope 2 by 2023, in Scope 1 and 2 by 2045, and be a complete climate neutral by 2050.
And also, we have been able to start using the new pool of Gescrap to go in the direction of this material decarbonization. We have signed during this year very important agreements with major steel suppliers in order to be able to use our scrap as a in order to be able to produce recycled steel with a kind of low CO2 emissions still. So this is an important role of Gescrap for the future of our strategy. And 2024, of course, is gonna be a key year for us. It's gonna be a key, key, key year for us. We are gonna keep on working on trying to build in our strategic pillars of for 2027 in order to be able to meet our midterm targets as committed in the capital market day last June and consolidating our status as a partner supplier.
So just to end up, I would say that, we have record results achieved in 2023. Of course, we see 2024 a transition year where we are gonna focus as a group in the implementation of the Phoenix Plan in order to be sure that we consolidate this status as partner supplier. Okay. With this now, we are open to your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 5 on your telephone keypad. There might be a short silence while questions are being registered. Thank you. The first question comes from Paco Ruiz from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon. I have three questions for me. The first one, it's on the delay we have seen in the EV production in the second half of last year, and probably will continue at least for several quarters. Could you give us an idea what could be the impact on your revenue during 2024? The second question is, just to clarify if all the costs of the Phoenix Plan are already included in your guidance. So mainly, we can infer that your free cash flow is gonna be EUR 60 million higher than the target that you have for 2023, I mean, assuming the EUR 200 million that you have guided.
The third is, following the acquisition of minorities that you have done in the U.S., could you tell us if you have any other pullback options that will be exercised in the coming month, in this respect? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your questions. And I will refer to the first question around the EVs. It's true that we have seen some delay and some problems in the EVs in the second half of the year. It's true that this has happened, basically, in some extent, a lot some noise in Europe, but not in China, for instance. In China, the sales and the manufacturing of EVs have been running quite well during the second half and the rest of the year. And it's true that there's been some delay.
We see our customers committed to the launch of the new EVs, but it's true that, in some cases, due to some technical ideas, there is some delay in this implementation. So for us, it's not such a big impact, for instance, in Europe because as far as there is some delay in the EVs, we could be able to keep on producing and delivering on the ICE vehicles. So it's not such a big impact. But, of course, we are monitoring this very, very closely in order to be able to react. But, so far, we see the plans of our customers moving forward, and we don't see any change. And the commitment and the investment that they are doing for EVs in the future is remaining intact. So maybe with the cost of Phoenix?
Yes, sure. Paco, thank you for your question. As we referred in the slide of guidance, actually in the presentation, the guidance is excluding any extraordinary impact. So it actually excludes the impact of Phoenix of EUR 60 million in the course of 2024 between CAPEX, OPEX, and CapEx.
And not in margin, yeah, and in margin also.
Margin also, yes.
Okay.
And on your third question around any further options to be exercised during 2024, at this stage, there is nothing on the table. But as you know, this is a strategy that we have been pursuing since 2021 of reducing the minorities. And we cannot overrule that something could happen in 2024. But so far, there's nothing on the table.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Akshat Kacker from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Akshat, from JP Morgan. Three questions from my side as well, please. The first one on low single-digit outperformance and the growth drivers. Could you just share more details in terms of what regions drive growth for Gestamp in 2024? And also on the revenue line, in terms of the different moving parts, could you talk about your assumption on the impact of raw materials on the top line, please? That's the first question. The second question is on free cash flow. Could you just discuss your expectations on total CAPEX spend for 2024, and including the restructuring one-offs in CAPEX as well? Is it fair to say that absolute CAPEX should be now peaking for Gestamp in 2024?
And the last one is on the Phoenix restructuring plan and the target to hit 10% EBITDA margins by 2026. So should we think about the margin profile as declining in 2024 and then more of a straight-line improvement to 2026, or is it more of a back-end loaded, development in that region, please? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your questions. I can take the first and the third one if you want, Nacho. So there of course, in terms of, growth, we are expecting this year to have a limited outperformance compared with the market. So that means that, probably we are gonna be in a kind of growth rate of around 2%-3%. That is what we are guiding. To be honest, we are gonna grow in all the different, regions. We have, now good position in China.
In fact, last year, we were able to outperform the market clearly in China. And this year, also, we are expecting to do so. And also, we are expecting also to be able to outperform in all the different regions with the different customers. In terms of what could be the impact of raw materials, we are expecting, especially in Europe, some slight decrease on the price of the steel. It's not gonna be relevant, what we are expecting. And, of course, still, the steel prices will be at a higher level of the ones that we had in 2019 or 2020. In terms of the Phoenix program, what we are intending that we have guided is a margin of EBITDA of 10% by 2016.
It's true that the most important part of the cost associated with OPEX and CapEx is gonna happen by 2024. Also, in terms of CAPEX, we will try to do as much as possible in the beginning in order to be able to take full advantages of all these in the years to come. We are not providing you with what is gonna be the increase from the existing 6.7% to the 10%, but we feel it's quite comfortable that we have margins in order to be able to exceed this 10% margin of EBITDA by 2026.
With regards to free cash flow and CapEx, basically, I, I'd like to refer to our statement of our capital markets day where we said that we would be having ending at 1 between 1 and 1.5 times net debt to EBITDA and free cash flow positive every year. In this case, what we have guided is for EUR 200 million free cash flow. We will be doing investments during the year, which will be focused on following our clients in their transition to EV and also basically on focusing on profitable growth and accretive growth in terms of return on capital employed. So, we are not going to be providing guidance on CapEx for the year.
Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star five on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from Álvaro Lenze from Alantra Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on 2024 guidance. You are guiding again for EUR 200 million free cash flow. In 2023 you have delivered. But I would highlight that you have generated more than EUR 160 million from working capital. So I was wondering just how sustainable is to continue to receive financing from working capital. I don't know if this is just a structural change in your business that the company is now financing its growth by via working capital or if this has been more of a one-off or of improving the working capital situation of the group.
My second question would be on the Phoenix Plan and how could you relocate capacity into Mexico? I don't know if your clients would move as well to Mexico or if you can export from Mexico to the U.S. the parts that you manufacture. And the last question would be regarding China. You have mentioned that you have improved your market share. You have outgrown the market in China. I would like to know what's the mix there. I don't know if it's with Western OEMs or is it that you are gaining market share with local OEMs? And then also, how do you see the EV market going forward into the mid and long term? How Chinese OEMs can play out and take market share from Western OEMs? And how could that impact Gescrap in the medium and long term? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Álvaro. I'll take the first one. With regards to working capital, I think that we have had an efficient working capital management in 2023. But you also need to take into account that we have had an extraordinary working capital this year due to that increase of raw materials and, obviously, the pass-through clauses that we have to our clients and then to our and to our, basically, our receivables. There is still room for improvement, actually, in our working capital going forward. We don't see, actually, a deterioration of that. And if you think in terms of the volumes of factoring that we have done over our sales, these have been lower in 2023 than in 2022.
So, basically, I think that, yes, part of our cash flow has been generated through working capital, but also, it has been very well generated by our EBITDA, of a strong management of our financing expense and, basically, a disciplined, you know, CAPEX investments.
Okay. So referring to the Phoenix Plan, it's true that we have added here in the plan the decision to move the capacity of work of our plants in U.S. to Mexico. I don't want to provide more details now right now, but it's important to mention that, in this case, we are moving the facilities. We have the kind of facility that we have are not really heavy, let's say. And the kind of product that we are moving to Mexico in terms of logistic costs are not very relevant.
So that's why we have studied that, and we see that it's gonna be a very, very short payout of this transferring of this production from U.S. to Mexico because of the logistic costs. We cannot do that with most of our products because logistic costs are quite relevant. In terms of China, last year we did a very good outperforming of the market. And this year, also, we are expecting to do so. This outperformance has come from our sales to EVs. And we have done these sales not just for pure EV players but also for general players and not only for foreign but also for Chinese. So we have made very important growth, for instance, for some EV player, which is not Chinese.
Then also, we have increased a lot our cooperation with Chinese players, especially around the products that are much more related to EVs like, for instance, in the area of the Door Ring. In terms of what is gonna happen with the EVs and China, of course, right now, it's true that in China there is some kind of advantage today in what is referred to EVs. And it's true that we have seen a limited impact coming out from imports from China. But as far as the logistic cost to send vehicles from China to the rest of the world are very, very relevant. What we could see maybe in the future is that we can have some of these OEMs in China opening plants in other areas in the world.
For us, it's more an opportunity rather than a risk because we are already working with them in China. So there is not a concern. But, of course, right now, it's a moment of time that everybody's getting a little bit nervous.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 5 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions. Dear speakers, back to you.
We wanted to apologize because I think we've been having some operational issues for those who are listening through the webcast. So if you have any further question, the IR team remains at your disposal, okay? So thanks very much for making the time to join us today. Have a good evening.
Thank you. Good evening.
Thank you.